The GOP's child tax credit is an insult to American families

It would give a family making $1 million 44 times more cash than a single mother earning minimum wage

Single moms.
(Image credit: 67photo / Alamy Stock Photo)

A new and improved child tax credit was supposed to be the saving grace of the Republican tax reform plan.

One way or another, Republicans were always going to massively cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. But a persistent group of reform conservatives — spearheaded by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — has been pushing to expand and upgrade the child tax credit (CTC) as well. Properly upgraded, the CTC could do enormous good reducing child poverty and helping working families with the spiraling costs of child care. However hare-brained the Republicans' ideas for boosting jobs and wages may be, the CTC seemed one place where the party had talked itself into doing something great.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.