Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. child poverty rate was a ‘disgrace” that should be addressed with a child tax credit.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “New numbers out this week show that child poverty in the U.S. more than doubled in the last year from 5% to 12%, 1 in 8 American children. This comes after Congress let that pandemic-era enhanced tax credit expire. Do you think it should be put back, and who do you blame for the disappearance? Because that was not just Republicans.”
Sanders said, “That’s quite right. What we put in that tax credit substantially lowered childhood poverty in America. We put it in the American Rescue Plan. We tried to put it in the Build Back Better Plan, which has zero Republican support and did not have the support of Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema. We had 48 votes. ”
He continued, “We’re talking about the head of General Motors making 29 million a year. We are talking about the rich getting richer, and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. What a disgrace. What a disgrace. Of course, we have to restore that child tax credit. We have to end this obscenity of how we treat our children.”
Sanders added, “We have deal with income inequality. We need healthcare. These are not radical ideas. These are ideas that exist in many countries all over the world. But essentially now people, the people on top, think they have a right to have it all and the hell to anybody else.”
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