No Child Tax Credit for Working Poor
July 28 -- — As postal workers began making their rounds this past weekend, 25 million middle-class families began receiving envelopes containing $400-per-child tax credit checks, part of President George W. Bush's tax package.
But many low-income families will not receive those checks — an issue over which Democrats have tried to make political hay. On Friday, the House of Representatives recessed until September with the debate over those lower-income families still unresolved.
Soldier ‘Kind of Upset’
One example of those at the center of the controversy is Sgt. Diomario Hines.
Hines, a member of the 82nd Airborne, is back at Fort Bragg, N.C., after six months in Afghanistan, only to find himself in the middle of a different sort of battle.
In Afghanistan, as a member of a resupply unit, Hines provided food and water to U.S. soldiers. Back in North Carolina, Hines says he could use extra money from a child tax credit to help supply his wife and three children with food and school supplies.
But the Hines family is one of those that won't be getting a child tax credit check in the mail.
"It makes me feel kind of upset," Sgt. Hines told ABCNEWS, "because I pay taxes just like everyone else, and I need the same things they need."
Sgt. Hines and his wife, Gwendolyn, who works part-time at KFC, are members of the so-called "working poor," bringing home less than $26,000 a year.
No Income Tax, No Credit?
The Hines family and 6.5 million other working poor families pay all sorts of taxes — sales taxes, Social Security taxes — but they do not make enough money to pay income taxes. And the way many Republicans see it, common sense dictates that since Sgt. Hines does not pay income taxes, he should not get an income tax credit.
"To give them a $400 check from the government for every child they have would be the equivalent of giving them a welfare check," says Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth.
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