WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ohio U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown has spent nearly a decade trying to expand the child tax credit.

What You Need To Know

  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is trying again to permanently expand the child tax credit

  • Brown hosted a press conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday with organizers and activists

  • The child tax credit was temporarily expanded in 2021, but Congress has not yet reached a deal to make it permanent

On Wednesday, he held a press conference on Capitol Hill demanding it be included in the spending bills Congress is working to get passed before the year ends.

“No corporate tax cuts without the child tax credit. The deal is on the table,” Brown said, speaking beside activists and organizers.

The big COVID relief bill President Joe Biden signed into law last year temporarily increased the child tax credit so that a wider pool of families with children received more money from the government, from between $3,000-$3,600 per year, per child, rather than $2,000.

But the expansion expired at the end of 2021 and Congress has yet to reach a deal to bring it back or make it permanent.

Democrats argue the brief expansion cut the child poverty rate by 46%, according to the Census Bureau, but Republicans and some conservative Democrats take issue with the tax credit going to families that earn too little or don’t have parents working.

To get it done this month, Brown would have to convince Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and at least 10 Senate Republicans, to sign on.

“Whatever it takes, we’ve got to convince enough Republicans to go along with it,” Brown told Spectrum News last week. “They want tax cuts for corporations. I want to see tax cuts for the 90% of Ohio families that benefit from this.”

Families who qualify for the child tax credit receive automatic monthly payments from the government.

If an expansion deal doesn’t get sorted out this month, the new session of Congress will have to restart negotiations in January, while the tax credit stays at the current amount.