Washington, D.C. – Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet appeared Saturday on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation with Reverend Al Sharpton to discuss the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), extending the expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), and investing in the American people. The IIJA includes several of Bennet’s proposals, including major investments in broadband, wildfire recovery, Tribal access to clean water, and climate resilience.
In the upcoming reconciliation bill, Bennet continues to push an extension of the expanded CTC, which is based on his American Family Act and was signed into law in the American Rescue Plan Act earlier this year.
Bennet on the expanded CTC:
“There are three things. We take [the Child Tax Credit] from $2,000 a year to $3,000, $3,600 bucks for the kids under the age of six. We make it fully refundable, which means the millions of children, the poorest kids in our country who have not been eligible for it, will now be eligible for it. And it’s going to be paid out on a monthly basis.
“In fact, we started in July—July 15—families were getting $300 per kid, $250 bucks for kids over the age of six. That’s happening again in August, September, October, November [and December]. So, parents at the end of the month can make decisions about how to pay their grocery bill, pay their rent, maybe buy a little bit of child care so they can stay at work and keep working for their families. That’s why we need to make it permanent, when we’ve lived in an economy that’s worked really well for the top 10 percent for all these years, but it hasn’t worked for 90 percent of the American people. That’s what this is about.”
Bennet on the historic broadband investment in the IIJA:
“…This will mean that we will have broadband all across the country and not live in a world where one group of kids has access to broadband and another group doesn’t.
“Reverend, as you know, we’ve accepted the school districts over history, where one group of students had access to textbooks, another group didn’t have access to textbooks. Those are some of the darkest moments in the country’s history. And yet, we’ve allowed that to happen with broadband.”
Bennet on investing in American families:
“The way I look at this is that Washington for decades has not invested in working people, in working families. We’ve cut taxes by $5 trillion for the wealthiest people in America since 2001. We spent $5.6 trillion fighting two wars that were almost endless, two 20-year wars in the Middle East.
“And now finally, after all those decades, this is an opportunity for us to invest in the American people, in our infrastructure, in our children.”
Watch the full interview HERE.