Lawmakers Debut Family-Friendly Tax Moves Before Election Break

Lawmakers are making their last-minute pitches for family-friendly tax policies before heading for the campaign trail ahead of November’s election.

Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) unveiled a bill Thursday to increase the employer-provided child care tax credit and expand it for small and rural businesses.Democrats also laid out a proposal to make Affordable Care Act premium tax credits permanent, averting their expiration next year when large swaths of the 2017 GOP-led tax law also sunset.

Lawmakers have long pitched tax credits as a way to defray child care costs for parents and employers in hopes of reducing that major expense for families.

Family-focused tax policy has been in the spotlight in the presidential race as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump engage in a bidding war over how to make the child tax credit, a different policy, more generous.

Democrats also sought to put down markers on key issues like housing and health care. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced a bill Tuesday proposing to more than triple the size of the low-income housing tax credit.

The flurry comes as lawmakers prepare to head out for a six-week break to campaign before November.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) unveiled the ACA premium tax credit legislation with Democrats from both chambers. The credits—which cost billions over a decade—have been in the GOP crosshairs as that party fights for tax cuts.

Democrats extended the credit expansion through the end of 2025, aligning it with lapses of provisions in the GOP law. If the credits aren’t extended, nearly 4 million Americans could be left uninsured.

Bill cosponsor Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) floated the possibility that the legislation could be included in a lame duck tax package as lawmakers clear the decks ahead of the next Congress when they return in November.

The move would give insurers enough time to set rates for 2026, she said.

Whether that tax package materializes in the lame duck—a potential first look at the appetite for dealmaking next Congress—remains to be seen. But Schumer didn’t rule it out.