[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 82 (Wednesday, May 12, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H2210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  BENEFITS OF THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN

  (Mr. JONES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, the American Rescue Plan is the most 
transformative economic legislation for working families in a 
generation.
  Our expansion of the child tax credit will literally cut child 
poverty in half. But unless we make the expansion permanent, we will 
find ourselves a year from now in the same dire straits that existed 
before the pandemic: A country where we accept that 11 million people 
live in poverty, nearly 15 percent of all children in this country; a 
country where we accept that 25 percent of Black children live in 
poverty.
  I have been in Congress for 5 months and I am already tired of having 
to vote to reauthorize things that we know should be permanent. 
Expanding the child tax credit is a moral and economic imperative. It 
should not have an expiration date.
  For the last year, we have talked about the impossible choices that 
families have been forced to make: childcare or healthcare; food or 
rent.
  The reality is, these impossible choices existed for millions of 
families before the pandemic began, and they will continue to exist 
after the pandemic is over. Poverty is a choice that we make here in 
this Chamber, and we can choose to end it.

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