Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): With Build Back Better on ice, the time has come for Child Tax Credit advocates — myself included — to accept an inconvenient truth:
@Sen_JoeManchin is a sitting U.S. senator, and we are not.
My latest explains the best way to meet him in the middle. https://www.niskanencenter.org/meeting-manchin-in-the-middle/
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): @Sen_JoeManchin While many were surprised when Manchin pulled support for BBB in December, he actually made his red lines clear from early on.
He said he'd only support the CTC if it had a work test of some kind and greater means-testing.
We just didn't listen.
https://www.axios.com/scoop-manchins-red-lines-f9f5f7f7-56d8-4bf6-8345-13abb75ef03f.html
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): @Sen_JoeManchin Instead, CTC advocates responded with a mix of persuasion and ridicule.
We ran pieces on why a work requirement was unnecessary, for example.
https://www.niskanencenter.org/five-reasons-the-child-tax-credit-shouldnt-have-a-work-requirement/
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): @Sen_JoeManchin It's amazing how far the child allowance concept has come in a short time.
Yet Manchin isn’t unreasonable for failing to keep pace with the current vogue in social policy. A CTC compromise that would've been unthinkably ambitious only a few years ago is still well within reach. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481686733410512900/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): @Sen_JoeManchin That starts by taking Manchin seriously.
Consider his dual demands for a work test and to make accessing the credit easier for children raised by their grandparents. While these seem superficially in tension, there are ways to square this circle. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481687237750407174/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): Manchin’s requests make internal sense in context.
Of the grandparents in West Virginia who live with their grandchildren, 54% are the primary guardian or caregiver — the second-highest rate in the country & a disturbing byproduct of the opioid epidemic.
https://wvmetronews.com/2021/11/17/west-virginia-among-top-states-with-most-annual-drug-overdose-deaths/
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): Similarly, the notion that some non-working parents spend their CTC on fentanyl or meth may sound patronizing and cruel.
Yet consider that it reflects a good-faith concern informed by the unique facts on the ground in his own state.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-manchin-build-back-better-child-tax-credit-drugs_n_61bf8f6be4b061afe394006d
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): Big picture, child benefits like the CTC actually reduce spending on drugs and alcohol by reducing household finance stress.
Yet these are average effects, and thus not truly responsive to Manchin's core concern.
https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-child-tax-credit-reduces-spending-on-alcohol-and-tobacco/
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): While I still think an earnings test of any kind is unnecessary, I can also see Manchin's POV.
WV opioid deaths were up 62% in 2021. This isn't stereotyping or anecdotal. The data reflect a serious crisis even if it's a tiny fraction of families overall.
https://www.wboy.com/only-on-wboy-com/grandparents-raising-grandkids-in-west-virginia-and-the-isolation-of-covid/
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): With the alternative being no CTC expansion whatsoever, advocates have every reason to meet Manchin in the middle.
But to break the impasse, each side must try to legitimately address the other’s concerns while still saving face.
That means getting creative. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481692267580645378/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): A strong compromise proposal would start by preserving the larger Child Tax Credit for children below the age of 6 and keep its structure as an unconditional monthly payment.
A monthly benefit is most useful in these early years when parental income is also at its most volatile. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481692701787660289/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): Next, add a minimal work test for claiming the CTC for kids ages 6 to 17.
That could be done with a rapid earnings phase-in, or with a simple W2 requirement as Manchin has proposed.
The important part will be to exempt retired parents, disabled parents, and full-time students. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481693694432587776/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): Lastly, Manchin previously demanded a $60,000 "income cap." Taken literally, this would produce a sharp benefit cliff while exacerbating marriage penalties in the tax code.
A more charitable interpretation is that Manchin simply wants the CTC to be more tightly means-tested. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481694345371832321/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): I personally favor universal program structures, but of all of Manchin's demands, lowering the threshold for when the CTC begins to phase out should be the easiest to accommodate. https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-bourgeois-equality-of-a-universal-child-allowance
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): I'm agnostic about what the phase out thresholds should be so long as the CTC still extends into the middle-class.
They just need to remember to phase it out at a gradual rate to avoid creating large implicit marginal taxes. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481695486046179331/photo/1
Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese): These principles balance good policy with realistic politics, letting each side claim partial victory.
It may be no one's "first-best" outcome, but don't lose perspective: A Manchin-approved CTC could still be the most progressive anti-poverty reform in decades.
Get it done. https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1481697745291329543/photo/1