Ivanka Trump is shaping up to be the hero of a Republican push to expand the child tax credit.
Republican lawmakers hailed her as an ‘an amazing champion’ for families and thanked her for her leadership at a Wednesday afternoon event on Capitol Hill.
We’re ‘obviously grateful to Ivanka, because she’s really made it a priority for the White House, without whom this would not be where it is today in terms of our discourse,’ Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said.
For her part, Trump told the cameras, ‘We’re all rowing in the same direction, and we appreciate the moment to come together and elevate awareness around the issues that we’re trying to solve for.’
Ivanka Trump is shaping up to be the hero of a Republican push to expand the child tax credit
Republican lawmakers hailed her as an ‘an amazing champion’ for families and thanked her for her leadership at a Wednesday afternoon event on Capitol Hill
First daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump (left) appeared at a Capitol Hill event alongside Sen. Marco Rubio (right) of Florida
‘We’re all rowing in the same direction, and we appreciate the moment to come together and elevate awareness around the issues that we’re trying to solve for,’ Ivanka Trump said
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina spoke briefly at the event, which was also attended by first daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Trump is photographed leaving a Capitol Hill briefing Wednesday where she promoted an expanded child tax credit
Ivanka Trump (right) visited Capitol Hill Wednesday. Flanked by Rep. Kristi Noem (left), a Republican from South Dakota, the White House aide joined lawmakers to discuss the child tax credit
The president’s daughter has made women’s empowerment part of her White House platform. As part of that effort, she’s been pushing an increase in the child tax credit, $1,000 per dependent at present.
She’s banded with a group of Republican senators who had been pushing the issue for years with no real movement until her father came along. President Trump’s tax overhaul promotes the measure as a pillar of middle class assistance.
Rubio said that he and Republican Mike Lee of Utah received ‘lukewarm’ support for their proposition to raise the credit to $2,500 when they first brought it forward a few years ago.
Now, an ‘impressive cross-section’ of Republican House and Senate legislators are backing it, he said, giving credit to Ivanka and the Trump White House.
The most important institution in America is the family, and it costs more money than ever to raise a child, the Florida Republican said, citing a Department of Agriculture statistic that it costs $230,000 to raise a child in America these days.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a mother of three, thanked Rubio, Lee and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott for being at the forefront of the issue.
She said she left a luncheon on Capitol Hill yesterday with the president with the impression that tax reforms must be targeted at the middle class.
‘So, Ivanka I want to thank you for your leadership, and you’ve been a great champion on this,’ the mother of three asserted. ‘As you can see, we’re all singing from the same songbook, and we welcome that.’
Taking the mic next, Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada gave Ivanka a pat on the back, too.
‘In an effort not to be repetitive, I do want to thank Ivanka for her leadership on this. I want to thank her for taking time. I want to thank her for making it a priority in the White House.’
Ivanka was one of the first speakers at the news conference.
She rattled off a set of statistics on the typical American family, claiming it spends 29 percent of after-tax income on childcare costs. and for two children exceeds annual medium rent in every state.
It is the highest single household expense in the Northeast and the Midwest, she argued, and exceeds tthe cost of fulltime infant care in two-thirds of states.
It also exceeds 4-year tuition at a public university and is higher than average food stamp spending in every state in America.
‘It is a priority of this administration and it is a legislative priority to ensure that American families can thrive and that we deliver real and meaningful tax relief to middle income Americans,’ she said.
President Trump left the messy details of tax reform up to Republicans in Congress after he put forward an overarching proposal.
Lawmakers are considering a plan to double the child tax credit to $2,000.
Ivanka stressed Wednesday that the tax code has not been radically altered since 1986. It must be amended, she said, to realize ‘our dual values of work and a family.’
‘We need to make our business competitive. We need to simplify and democratize our tax code. We need to drive wage growth and we need to give opportunity to all Americans,’ Ivanka stated. ‘And I’ve been really very inspired by the amount of engagement, and reception to talking about some of these critical and fundamental issues.’