OPINION:
With a second bite at the apple to reshape the nation’s tax structure, President Trump gets to prioritize what worked and leave behind what didn’t. Unlike most who secure a second term, Mr. Trump begins once again with his party holding unified control of Congress, and lawmakers are working to advance the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s major tax and spending reforms to deliver his campaign promises.
Having served in the White House during Mr. Trump’s first term, I am excited to see the president and Republicans in Congress prioritizing family policy once again, with a major tax cut for families in the works.
The House Ways and Means Committee holds major sway on how tax bills get written, and its chairman, Rep. Jason Smith, deserves particular praise for securing a major boost in the child tax credit. This tax deduction allows working parents to reduce their tax liability for each child.
First conceived in House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America, the child tax credit became law in 1998, but it was never big enough. What was a few hundred dollars compared with the cost of raising children? Mr. Trump finally changed the game with his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, rocketing the credit to $2,000. Since then, Democrats have experimented with the credit as well, sometimes in helpful ways. But the inflation wave families have experienced since 2021 — largely because Democrats have overspent our tax dollars and disincentivized work — has eroded those gains.
Thankfully, Mr. Trump is back in the White House, and he has a great ally in Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith boosted the credit to $2,500 per child, catching it up to its 2017 value, and he indexed it to inflation. This locks in the credit as a permanent part of the tax code, like the standard deduction, ensuring that it rises automatically yearly with inflation, so Congress won’t have to go through this same fight every four years like it does with other permanent parts of the tax code. That gives families the needed certainty.
Last, to help Mr. Trump keep his promise to put America first, Mr. Smith ensured that the child tax credit would go only to American parents and children, requiring Social Security number verification. The Senate has proposed a $2,200 credit while ensuring it is permanently funded, with the other changes all included as well.
The Senate and House now have to reconcile their proposals. That’s their job. Washington works at its own pace. If they do make changes, one more improvement they can make is to begin phasing the child tax credit in with the first dollar earned. This has been shown to further incentivize work. That would amplify the hard work of Messrs. Trump and Smith to boost the child tax credit, grow our economy and make life a little easier for those who do God’s most vital work: raising children.
I worked with Mr. Trump. A lot has been said about him and his intentions with the tax bill. They said a lot about us in 2017 too. So much of it was untrue. The president has changed the Republican Party into the voice of working-class American families, and Republicans’ majority in this Congress is living proof.
One thing about the president: He is always trying to see past the elites who surround him in Washington to the families on the other side, to those struggling to make it in America while prices rise and politicians abandon them. Mr. Trump promised to build real opportunity zones for American families, and this helped him secure an unlikely second term with an even unlikelier congressional majority and record numbers of Black, Hispanic and young voters.
Mr. Trump’s work to expand the child tax credit in 2017 and today, as well as his support for this effort in Congress by people like Mr. Smith, made good the promise that restored him to power.
• Ja’Ron Smith was the highest- and longest-ranking Black adviser in the first Trump administration, serving in a number of roles. Most recently, he served as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and as deputy director of the White House Office of American Innovation.
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