It’s not hard to hide things in a 2,135-page document, and that is exactly what the Democrats tried to do in their new spending bill.
It has already been quite a fight for the Biden administration to get Democrats to back the $1.75 trillion bill. There was disagreement over the timing of the bill and its relation to the rest of the president’s Build Back Better plan.
But now the discovery of a provision, tucked on page 1647, may cause even more disagreement over the legislation.
The provision would end the requirement of a Social Security number in order to get child tax credits. This would mean that billions of dollars could be doled out in child tax to credit to just about anyone. Illegal immigrants would be able to claim child tax credits with this new provision.
“No credit shall be allowed under this section to a taxpayer with respect to any qualifying child unless the taxpayer includes the name and taxpayer identification number of such qualifying child,” current law regarding child tax credits stipulates.
Steven Camarota, a researcher with the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News he estimates that repealing this requirement could lead to about an extra $2.3 billion in payouts to illegal immigrants for child tax credits.
Camarota also estimated a big payout for all the illegal immigrants who have U.S.-born children.
“[W]e estimated that illegal immigrants would receive $8.2 billion in cash payments from the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which is part of budget reconciliation bill, also referred to as the Build Back Better (BBB) Act,” Camarota wrote for CIS.
This massive spike in payouts is also a result of the new program increasing the child tax credit maximum payment.
“The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment, which is referred to as a ‘refundable credit,’ from $1,400 per child under the old ACTC to $3,600 for children under six, and $3,000 for children six to 17. The new CTC is only extended for one year in the BBB, after which the maximum for all children would be $2,000,” Camarota wrote.
But even if the CTC payout decreases again next year, the payouts will still be significantly higher if the requirement of a Social Security number is eliminated.
“The elimination of the SSN requirement also allows the more than 600,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the border in family units or as unaccompanied minors and released in FY 2021 to receive cash payments from the new CTC,” Camarota wrote.
These CTC payouts are not be confused, however, with Biden’s previous idea to pay those immigrant families that were separated at the border because they “deserve some kind of compensation.”
This amount of payouts for child tax credits is going to be damaging. Keeping the whole immigration argument out of it, just on the financial side this kind of extra spending is irresponsible.
Biden’s whole bill is already $1.75 trillion, and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the whole Build Back Better plan could massively increase the deficit.
“CBO estimates that enacting this title would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $150.7 billion over the 2022-2031 period. That increase in the deficit would result from an increase in direct spending of $151.5 billion and an increase in revenues of $0.8 billion,” the CBO announced Monday.
Despite all this, though, Democrats still seem to be determined to pass this spending bill this week.
“Yes, we intend — that is our plan to pass the bill the week of Nov. 15, as is indicated in our statements that were made at the time of passing the infrastructure bill, and we’re very proud of that,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Nov. 9, according to the New York Post.
So in the midst of our economy still hobbled and recovering from COVID, and inflation hitting a 30 year high, Democrats want to throw billions more away.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
