Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance defended his past remarks about childless women by falsely claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, wants to end a tax credit for parents.
Vance has gotten a lot of backlash about a pair of interviews he gave in 2021, one in which he complained the U.S was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies," and another in which he said childless Americans should pay higher tax rates. Vance has since told Sirius XM radio host Megyn Kelly and Fox News that his comments were taken out of context.
Then, the Ohio senator shifted to Harris.
"Why do we have the Harris campaign coming out this very morning, Megyn, and saying that we should not have the child tax credit, which lowers tax rates for parents of young children? It's because they have become antifamily and antikid," Vance told Kelly on July 26.
He followed up with the similar claim in a July 28 interview with Fox News host Trey Gowdy. "How did we get to this place where Kamala Harris is calling for an end to the child tax credit?" Vance said.
She isn’t. PolitiFact found no evidence that Harris has ever called to end the child tax credit. On the contrary, she supports it. The Biden-Harris administration expanded the tax credit in 2021, when the American Rescue Plan became law, and Harris has pushed Congress to make the credit permanent.
We contacted Vance’s Senate office and the Trump campaign for comment but did not hear back by publication.
Harris’ support of the child tax creditCongress established the child tax credit in 1997 to financially support families with children. The amount and age of eligibility have been increased and expanded multiple times, with bipartisan support, since 2001.
The credit provides families up to $2,000 per child younger than 17. Taxpayers who don’t owe enough in taxes to benefit from the credit could receive a refund of up to $1,400, but not the full $2,000. Eligibility for the credit phases out at higher income levels — currently single filers making $200,000 a year or more, or $400,000 for joint filers.
The American Rescue Plan, which passed Congress with slim Democratic majorities before President Joe Biden signed it into law in March 2021, increased the credit for the 2021 filing year. The measure expanded the credit to $3,600 per child younger than 6, and $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17. The credit was also made fully refundable, making households eligible to receive the full benefit. (The credit reverted in 2022 to the previous $2,000-per-child maximum.)
Harris called the increased child tax credit "one of the most important, one of the most impactful parts of the American Rescue Plan."
The tax credit helped lift 2.9 million children out of poverty in 2021, a Census Bureau paper found. Almost three-quarters of the children benefited from the 2021 expansion, the report said.
The Biden administration has pushed to make the 2021 credit increase permanent, including it in the White House’s 2025 fiscal year budget blueprint. In January, Harris lauded the House for passing a bipartisan tax package that includes the child tax credit expansion.
"Good news: The Child Tax Credit bill is headed to the Senate," Harris posted Feb. 1 on X "While @POTUS and I continue to fight for the full expanded Child Tax Credit, this bill should be passed quickly. President Biden is ready to sign it into law."