The story is confusing. How did it end up that some Democrats voted against the House bill extending the refundable child tax credits to the 6.5 million low-income families who got left out of the latest tax break for the wealthy?

Neither the President's $600 plus billion proposal eliminating the taxes on investment dividends, nor the original House or Senate bills included a provision extending the child tax credit to the poorest families. However, the bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee (cutting investment dividends and capital gains taxes) did include it. The provision was then quietly dropped during the conference proceedings that reconciled House and Senate versions. Thus it was left out of the final bill that was voted on and approved.

A huge uproar followed and was justified. It was bad enough that Congress, working at the behest of the Bush administration, passed trillions of dollars in irresponsible tax cuts targeted at the wealthy, but the refusal to include $3.5 billion to cover low-income working families was over the top. The Senate moved quickly to correct the problem, passing a $10 billion bill that paid for the lost revenue. The House, however, decided to use the issue as political theater, passing an $82 billion bill with a number of add-ons that were not paid for. A few principled Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Pelosi and Minority Whip Hoyer refused to fall for this cynical and irresponsible power play.

Predictably, the House bill nevertheless passed, though Democrats were successful in blocking a procedural rule that would have kept the $10 billion Senate bill from being considered in conference. There seems to be little hope that the House and Senate will ever actually agree in conference. Basically, the Republican leadership got what it wanted--to be able to say it passed a bill for low-income people while knowing full well that the bill will never take effect. This seems to be a strategy that will continue to be used by the Republican leadership--pair expensive tax cuts for the wealthy with a few tax cuts or benefits for the rest of us and then complain that anyone who votes against the bill doesn’t care about poor people.

Ultimately, the losers in this situation are low-income families. A bill that includes an extension of the child tax credit to low-income families will not be passed in time for them to receive their refund along with everyone else, and probably will not be passed at all. The larger picture is even worse. The tax cut mania threatens to literally bankrupt the United States government. Using poor people to get more tax cuts for the rich is reprehensible, but the bigger problem is that the huge cost of irresponsible and irrational tax cuts will harm low- and middle-income people for decades to come, forcing cuts in services and benefits that we all depend upon.