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"If JD Vance sincerely gave a whit about working families in America, he would have shown up in the Senate a week and a half ago and voted for my proposal to expand the Child Tax Credit," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
The Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee on Sunday called Sen. JD Vance "a phony" after the Republican vice presidential candidate proposed more than doubling the Child Tax Credit—less than two weeks after skipping a vote on legislation that would have expanded the benefit.
"If JD Vance sincerely gave a whit about working families in America, he would have shown up in the Senate a week and a half ago and voted for my proposal to expand the Child Tax Credit and help 16 million low-income kids get ahead," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who helped craft the compromise bill that passed the House in February but failed to overcome a GOP filibuster in the Senate earlier this month.
Some members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the upper chamber, voted against the measure because—in addition to boosting the Child Tax Credit (CTC)—it would have extended significant corporate tax breaks, a trade-off aimed at securing Republican votes.
Vance (R-Ohio), a self-proclaimed "pro-family" lawmaker, missed the vote because he was visiting the U.S.-Mexico border. Wyden said Sunday that former President Donald Trump's running mate "didn't even care enough to use his platform to call on his Senate Republican colleagues to support" an expansion of the CTC.
"What kept him away while we were voting? He was busy posing for photos on the southern border—another issue he and Donald Trump pretend to care about while they block real solutions for political gain," said Wyden. "Bottom line, the guy's a phony."
In an interview aired Sunday, Vance toldCBS' "Face the Nation" that he supports more than doubling the CTC and eliminating the regressive phase-in that leaves the poorest families ineligible for the program.
Such changes would resemble those enacted in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan (ARP), Democratic legislation that GOP lawmakers unanimously opposed. The measure passed before Vance was elected to the U.S. Senate.
The ARP's expansion of the CTC lapsed at the end of 2021 due to opposition from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, quickly erasing the brief reduction in child poverty that followed the law's passage.
Earlier this month, Vance falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris—the Democratic presidential nominee—"is calling for an end to the Child Tax Credit." Harris cast the tie-breaking vote that allowed the ARP to advance in the Senate.
Bloombergnoted that Vance "went on three network political talk shows Sunday after a shaky start on the GOP ticket, damaged in part by resurfaced comments in which he belittled Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, as 'childless cat ladies.'"
Harris' campaign has hit back forcefully. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris' running mate, slammed Vance for skipping the CTC expansion vote in a recent social media post.
"In Minnesota, we're cutting poverty and strengthening families with our Child Tax Credit," Walz wrote, referring to a state program that's been described as the most generous in the nation. "You'd think JD Vance would be eager to do the same nationally. Except he skipped a vote to pass the federal Child Tax Credit expansion yesterday. Give me a break with that pro-family talk."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she doesn't "understand why we are being asked to confirm someone whose plan for strengthening Social Security is to gut its protection."
Democrats on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee raised alarm Wednesday over the nomination of American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Andrew Biggs to serve on the Social Security Advisory Board, pointing to his long record of supporting privatization efforts and benefit cuts.
President Joe Biden first nominated Biggs to the independent board in 2022 and renominated him early last year following the end of the 117th Congress. By nominating Biggs, a conservative, to the post, Biden adhered to the board's tradition of bipartisanship.
But during the finance committee's confirmation hearing for Biggs and other nominees, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that she doesn't "understand why we are being asked to confirm someone whose plan for strengthening Social Security is to gut its protection" to a spot on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), which advises lawmakers, the president, the Social Security commissioner on how to bolster the New Deal program.
"In all fairness to Mr. Biggs, his views are not extreme outliers," Warren added. "His plan is Republicans' plan. Republican policymakers have spent years trying to undermine Social Security by pushing to reduce benefits, to raise the retirement age, and to cut payroll taxes that keep the program alive."
Warren pressed Biggs on whether he supports raising taxes on the wealthy to ensure Social Security's solvency over the long term, as Democratic lawmakers have proposed. In 2023, millionaires stopped paying into Social Security just two months into the year thanks to a cap on the amount of income subject to the program's payroll tax.
Biggs said he would "prefer not to" lift the payroll tax cap.
"So you oppose it, OK," Warren responded. "Raising the payroll tax income cap so that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share would extend Social Security's solvency by 75 years. But if you take raising revenue from the wealthiest people off the table, then that leaves one option to extend Social Security's solvency, and that is benefit cuts."
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) pointed to Biggs' tenure on a George W. Bush administration commission that suggested partially privatizing Social Security by allowing workers to move a portion of their payroll tax contributions into private accounts, a change that would have compromised the program's primary funding source.
"I'm concerned about your record on Social Security, as you know," Brown said Wednesday, adding that Biggs and his allies support letting "Wall Street gamble with people's guaranteed retirement security."
"You advocated privatizing Social Security," said Brown. "You and your allies back off that sometimes, saying you're not—but you have been."
Biggs told Brown that he does not support privatizing Social Security, breaking with his previous view. Biggs also said that his proposed frameworks for Social Security reform have not included raising the retirement age—but acknowledged he has said in the past that it's not an "unreasonable idea."
During a Senate Finance Committee subcommittee hearing in 2013, Biggs said the "idea that we can't have a higher retirement age I think it just flies in the face of the fact that people did, in fact, retire later in the past, and today's jobs are less physically demanding than they were in the past."
Wednesday's hearing came two weeks after the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee voted largely along party lines to advance legislation to create a fiscal commission for the nation's trust fund programs. Opponents of the bill say it's a ploy to fast-track cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, warned Wednesday that "if confirmed to the SSAB, Andrew Biggs would influence policymakers to push for Social Security cuts."
"This would devastate working class families, while creating another way for billionaires to avoid paying their fair share into the system," the group wrote on social media.
The Senate Finance Committee chair said he "should inform the committee exactly how much debt was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax returns and paid all taxes owed."
The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday released a report detailing how embattled Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may have had a substantial amount of a loan for a luxury RV forgiven by a wealthy friend—which one watchdog
called "a serious ethics issue."
The panel's probe was sparked by New York Timesreporting from August about Anthony Welters loaning Thomas money to buy a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, or "the Rolls-Royce of motor coaches," which cost $267,230 in 1999. Welters told the newspaper that "the loan was satisfied" and provided a photograph of the title with his signature and a handwritten "lien release" date of November 22, 2008.
The Senate memorandum states that "while additional documents pertaining to the loan agreement may exist, documents reviewed by Democratic staff suggest that Justice Thomas did not repay a significant portion of the loan principal. In fact, none of the documents reviewed by committee staff indicated that Thomas ever made payments to Welters in excess of the annual interest on the loan."
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement that "the committee has the answer to one of the pressing questions raised by reporting about his arrangement with Justice Thomas—was the loan ever repaid? Now we know that Justice Thomas had up to $267,230 in debt forgiven and never reported it on his ethics forms."
Wyden noted some of the "damning" details his staff uncovered in social media posts:
"Regular Americans don't get wealthy friends to forgive huge amounts of debt so they can buy a second home," the senator stressed. "Justice Thomas should inform the committee exactly how much debt was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax returns and paid all taxes owed."
As the Timesreported Wednesday:
A lawyer for Justice Thomas, Elliot S. Berke, disputed the committee's findings, saying, "The loan was never forgiven." He added, "The Thomases made all payments to Mr. Welters on a regular basis until the terms of the agreement were satisfied in full."
But he did not to respond when the Times asked him to reconcile that statement with documents obtained by the committee and cited in its report, including a 2008 letter from Mr. Welters to Justice Thomas stating that he would not seek further payments on the loan despite being entitled to them. Nor would Mr. Berke say whether "satisfied" meant that the justice had fully repaid the $267,230 he borrowed plus interest.
Wyden also said Wednesday that he "directed the committee to share our findings with the Judiciary Committee to evaluate the ethics implications of this disclosure."
In response to the findings, More Perfect Union's Jordan Zakarin asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on social media: "Do you have any interest in investigating? Or are you just going to let these maniac right-wing billionaires buy the Supreme Court and trash what remains of democracy?"
Durbin said that "with each new report, the American people realize how many lavish, undisclosed gifts Justice Thomas has received from his gaggle of fawning billionaires."
Thomas has also come under fire recently for his relationships with the
Koch network, fellow members of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, and billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, who treated Thomas to luxury vacations, bought his mother's house, and contributed to the private school tuition for a great-nephew the right-wing justice raised.
"This latest example—an undisclosed, forgiven $250,000+ loan—further proves the need for a binding code of conduct for all Supreme Court justices," Durbin added, pledging to take the report into account as his panel presses forward with ethics reform. He also has a message for Chief John Roberts: "Just How many more bombshell reports need to drop before you act on ethics reform? Until you act, we will."
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats advanced Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-R.I.) Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act in July, but the bill is unlikely to be passed by the full chamber or the GOP-controlled House.
Ethics concerns related to Thomas and other justices have fueled demands this year for reform legislation—including to expand the court—as well as recusals from specific cases and even Thomas' resignation.
Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said in response to the Senate's RV report that "Thomas takes cash while crushing your freedoms. He's corrupt as hell and should resign today."
Others highlighted that Thomas in June voted to strike down President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan, which would have canceled up to $20,000 per federal borrower.
"Clarence Thomas got a rich buddy to #cancelcamperdebt," Mike Pierce of the Student Borrower Protection Center wrote on social media. "That sound you hear is the collective primal scream coming from 40 million people who just want the Corrupt Clarence deal."