- Sen. Joe Manchin is in the spotlight for holding up key parts of the Democratic agenda.
- He's reiterating demands to impose a work requirement on the expanded child tax credit.
- But experts say he's laying out a set of conflicting demands that are impossible to reconcile.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia once again finds himself in the middle of the spotlight.
Senate Democrats spent the week pitching the conservative Democrat behind closed doors to salvage twin pillars of their domestic agenda on the economy and voting rights. But Manchin forms an obstacle preventing them from passing those bills.
He torpedoed President Joe Biden's $2 trillion social safety and climate legislation last month, forcing Democrats to shelve it for now. Senate Democrats can't muscle it through without his vote in the face of unified Republican opposition in the 50-50 upper chamber.
One area that Manchin has targeted for potential cuts is the expanded child tax credit, which expired last year. Democrats want to extend it for another year as part of their Build Back Better legislation. If it's restored, most families would be eligible for up to $300 per kid each month, depending on their children's ages.
However, Manchin is once again reiterating that he wants to see a work requirement on the child tax credit, telling Insider on Tuesday he's been "very clear" about blocking payments to parents without significant income.
But experts say that the work requirement conflicts with Manchin's other stated priorities for the tax credit and the West Virginia Democrat often ends up contradicting himself. "Manchin has laid out a set of incompatible demands," Samuel Hammond, director of poverty studies at the center-right Niskanen Center, told Insider.
A work requirement could block payments to families Manchin says he wants to focus on
On top of the work requirement, Manchin has said that he wants to see grandparents be able to qualify for the funding. But many grandparents caring for children are often retired and not working, a situation that would shut them out of the expanded monthly check program.
"He wants the child tax credit to have a work requirement, but then he also wants it to be easier for grandparents to claim," Hammond said. "That's a circle that can't be squared."
Manchin has also consistently said that he wants the neediest families to access the benefit. But imposing a work requirement would amount to putting in place an earnings requirement that would exclude millions of families with little or no taxable income.
Kathryn Anne Edwards, an economist at the Rand Corporation, said in an interview that work requirements have shown to pose more of a burden on families.
"A lot of times, it's really just an administrative burden," Edwards told Insider. "It makes it harder for them to access benefits than it is that instigates them or motivates them to work."
The West Virginia Democrat has often talked about parents filing a W-2 form to demonstrate they're working. Those are forms that employers typically provide to help wage and salary earners file their taxes. But not everyone is employed by a firm or company — others may be gig workers or freelancers who must use a 1099 form instead.
Some Democrats are already pushing back at Manchin's idea as overly punitive for average people.
"I don't think we should be punishing workers at the moment when 97% of the people who receive the tax credit are working — when there are grandparents, people driving Ubers and Lyfts that may not file W-2s," Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado recently told Insider.
For now, Democrats are publicly expressing confidence that the expanded credit won't fall out of the legislation, despite Manchin's objections.
"I don't think so," Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, another architect of the expansion, told Insider. "There is huge interest in the caucus because people have seen what it's meant for families in their states."
A Senate Democratic aide granted anonymity to speak candidly described reluctance within the caucus to float alternate scaled-back proposals that may end up not winning his support.
"I don't think any member wants to be out there proposing to make cuts to the CTC to try to get him onboard without him saying, 'This is what I support'", the aide said. "Members want to hear specifics from him as to what he would support."