A longshot bipartisan tax deal under negotiation on Capitol Hill could deliver extra cash to parents in exchange for business subsidies.

The top tax lawmakers in the House and Senate — Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — have been working on a deal expanding the child tax credit alongside business tax breaks.

The deal isn’t final, and even if Wyden and Smith reach an understanding, it’s not clear that the rest of Congress would go along.

Every culture has its famous myths, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, and the world of politics is no different. Take, for example, President Joe Biden's claims that he is a unifier or that " Bidenomics" is working .

Sen. Joe Manchin isn’t sharing any regrets about letting his party’s expansion of the Child Tax Credit lapse, even after a historic spike in youth poverty last year.

According to Census data released on Tuesday, the share of Americans under 18 living below the poverty line jumped from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022 as the Biden administration’s bulked-up credit expired, the biggest annual increase on record.

As the ink dries on the Inflation Reduction Act — the landmark federal law that tackles climate change, drug pricing, health insurance, and tax enforcement — advocates for the expanded child tax credit have been quietly mourning their loss.

Last year, as an alternative to the temporary expansion of the child tax credit under President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah introduced a plan to give every family a monthly benefit of up to $350 per child for children 5 and under and $250 per child for children 6 to 17. It was simple, generous (it included a payment before birth, too) and — on paper, at least — effective. According to the Niskanen Center, which helped devise the proposal, the Romney plan would cut overall child poverty by roughly a third and the deepest child poverty by half.

Advocates for an expanded child tax credit (CTC) did not expect to be in this situation.

A year ago, when Congress passed an expanded version of the policy that’s been around with bipartisan backing since 1997, some 35 million parents across the US began to see hundreds of dollars land in their bank accounts every month — money that they could spend however they saw fit.

WASHINGTON – Low-income parents faced more hardship in January after Congress failed to continue the monthly child tax credit payments that slashed child poverty last year.

Child poverty increased 40% without the payments, according to the Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy. The payments amounted to $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child under 18 for the vast majority of American families.

Madisen Williams drives a 2008 Hyundai with over 100,000 miles on it and a leaky hose.

A 33-year-old mother of two, the car allows her to move around Los Angeles to teach private youth dance lessons after Covid-19 forced schools to go remote. And when her next-door neighbor was murdered, the assurance of having a car convinced her to find a safer neighborhood — one without convenient public transportation — to raise her two kids.

Had Congress renewed the expanded child tax credit at the end of last year, Jen Cousins would have received $1,000 from the government on Jan. 14.

She would have used the money to fix the brakes on her family's only vehicle, a minivan. She would have taken her four kids to the eye doctor because they all need new glasses. Some of the money would have gone toward saving for fixing the roof of their house in Orlando, Fla.

Many social welfare programs target specific forms of assistance for specific groups. The expanded child tax credit last year became a test of a different model: cash assistance for families, with no strings attached.

Over the summer, Danette Mahabeer had a problem familiar to most parents at one point or another: Her daughter, Soheila, was “sprouting,” Ms. Mahabeer says. “Growing out of everything she owned.”

Clothes that fit were suddenly tight. So was money. As for food, Sohelia was ravenous.