A high-ranking Harris campaign staffer called giving people with children a tax break “vile” on social media Friday morning.
Harris campaign rapid response director Ammar Moussa attacked Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance on X for arguing in a 2021 interview that people with children should pay a lower tax rate than those without. Moussa’s comment could signal a shift in Vice President Kamala Harris’ views on the Child Tax Credit, which she previously has expressed support for, as senior Democrats worry that the vice president may depart from the tax agenda set during President Joe Biden’s term, according to Punchbowl News.
“So, you talk about tax policy, let’s tax the things that are bad and not tax the things that are good,” Vance said in 2021, according to ABC News. “If you are making $100,000, $400,000 a year and you’ve got three kids, you should pay a different, lower tax rate than if you are making the same amount of money and you don’t have any kids. It’s that simple.”
The Child Tax Credit provides a tax break of $2,000 per child to joint-filing parents with an annual income of $400,000 or less, according to the White House and the Internal Revenue Service.
“JD Vance’s attacks on childless Americans is even [more] vile,” Moussa wrote. “He called for HIGHER taxes on those without children.”
People on X were quick to point out that the policy proposal Moussa was criticizing was effectively an articulation of the Child Tax Credit.
“Isn’t this just the child tax credit, which you guys also support?” Washington Free Beacon reporter Joe Simonson responded.
Moussa defended himself by pointing out that Vance had supported a measure announced by Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that would have provided an additional tax bonus to married couples on a single income in order to make it easier for a parent to stay home and raise children. The Harris staffer argued this would mean “you get less money if you’re a single parent,” however, Hawley’s “parent tax credit” would have actually provided an additional $6,000 to single parents and $12,000 to married couples.
“WOW, the radical Kamala Harris campaign has come out against the child tax credit,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote. “They apparently don’t think parents should see any benefit in the tax code. Kamala is running the most anti-parent and anti-family campaign in American history!”
The Harris campaign and Moussa did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
(Featured image credit: Flickr/Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
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