Biden’s Team Braces for Child-Tax Credit to Lapse, May Double February Payment

19 Dec 2021, 04:17 AM IST

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is bracing for families to miss child tax credit payments in January and exploring the possibility of providing double payments in February to make up the shortfall, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

Pushing off the president’s economic agenda until next year means that the payments, which have been sent to families for the past six months but expired Wednesday, are unlikely to be ready for Jan. 15.

Psaki said the delayed payments could come in February if the president’s tax-and-spend proposal, which has been put off until after the New Year, gets through Congress in January.

“If we get it done in January, we’ve talked to Treasury officials and others about doing double payments in February as an option,” Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One, a day after Democratic leaders abandoned plans to pass President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate plan before their Christmas break.

The Internal Revenue Service had sought enactment of the bill before Dec. 28 to ensure Jan. 15 payments went out on time.

The monthly payments, as currently envisioned in the Build Back Better bill, give parents up to $300 per month for children under six and up to $250 per month for older children. Doubling up payments could mean that parents get twice those amounts in February.

“The president wants to see this move forward,” Psaki said Friday. “It’s a priority for him as soon as Congress returns.”

But the reality is that the challenges that have delayed Senate action on Biden’s signature agenda item will likely persist in the new year, namely demands from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that could force Democrats to choose between dramatically shrinking the bill’s benefits or jettisoning most of them.

Psaki said Biden spoke Thursday with a group of senators that included Manchin, who she said Biden considered to be “a friend.”

“He’s somebody who he has had many candid and direct conversations with. It doesn’t mean they always agree on everything but that is not the bar that the president sets for his friendships or relationships with members of Congress,” Psaki said. “The president is also someone who has been through many legislative battles, many legislative fights, many that have had ups and downs, but ultimately resulted in victory.”