President Joe Biden outlined his investment priorities in his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2024, released Thursday. The proposal aims to cut the nation's deficit by $3 trillion for the next ten years.
Parents will be happy to know that one of his major focuses is restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit checks and making it permanent alongside the expansion of access to healthcare and early child care and learning that is of high-quality yet affordable for American families and prioritization of special education programs for children with disabilities.
"When you look at this President's view of the world and what this budget put forward, it shows you what he values. This president clearly believes that the way to grow this economy is invest in the middle class and working families, and that we have to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out," United States Office of Management and Budget's director Shalanda Young commented about the President's budget proposal as quoted by Insider.
Child poverty surged in 2022
Biden's American Rescue Plan during the pandemic provided families with children over six years old $3,000 per child, while families with kids under the age of six received $3,600 per child. These amounts were distributed in monthly checks instead of making them a part of an annual tax refund.
However, the expanded Child Tax Credit ended in December of 2021 following opposition from Republicans and conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin.
When Biden made his budget proposal for 2024 public, it was evident that he intended to fully restore the program, which "proved to be formidable in its goal of reducing poverty," as Insider described.
The program was able to feed two million children and kept three million kids out of poverty in the first month of its implementation. According to the US Census Bureau, the child poverty rate declined from 2020's almost 10 percent to 2021's 5 percent.
Unfortunately, after the program was halted, child poverty again surged in 2022, causing the Biden administration to do what it could to turn things around.
Read More: Expanded Child Tax: Biden's State of the Union Address Aims to Provide Economic Relief for Families
More program expansion for children
The President's budget promises the states an increase in childcare options for over 16 million kids with affordable costs so parents can send their young ones to high-quality childcare. It also funds a Federal-State partnership that will give high-quality, universal preschool for free to make way for healthy child development and ensure that the kids can enter kindergarten with the readiness to succeed.
Moreover, the budget reflects the administration's continual support for children with disability, ensuring access to high-quality early intervention and special education services and personnel, the essentials to make them thrive in school, graduate college, and be ready to get a career, Council for Exceptional Children reported.
However, the President's budget proposal is still a proposal. Whether it will be approved in a Republican-majority House is yet to be answered. Some said that it is "unlikely" to be approved, while others expressed that at least it has been known to the American people what the current administration sees as important.
