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- A top Senate Dem slammed Lindsay Graham's argument that the Biden child tax credit will boost illegal immigration to the US.
- "I just have never heard such a stupid thing," Sen. Sherrod Brown told Insider.
- Republicans are stepping up their attacks on a benefit that Democrats are touting as an anti-poverty measure.
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, unloaded on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for arguing the enhanced child tax credit would boost illegal immigration to the US.
It comes after Graham held a press conference assailing the $1.75 trillion Democratic social spending bill, which includes an expansion of childcare, healthcare, a one-year enhanced child tax credit expansion and more.
"Expanding the child tax credit in this fashion is going to incentivize more illegal immigration," Graham said at a press conference on Thursday. "Word will spread if you can get to America and get a tax ID number, your children will get a tax credit from the government. This is the wrong policy at the wrong time."
Brown adamantly disagreed with Graham's characterization of the expansion. "It's a new argument just so that they could give tax cuts to the rich and squeeze working families," Brown told Insider. "I just have never heard such a stupid thing."
Most families are eligible for up to $300 monthly advance payments per kid depending on their age. It totals $3,000 per year for kids between 6 and 17 and $3,600 for children age 5 and under.
The latest House Democratic bill scrapped the requirement for a Social Security number, meaning unauthorized immigrant children could qualify for federal assistance with only an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). The left-leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities projected up to 675,000 children were eligible.
Republicans are stepping up their attacks on the child tax credit in recent weeks after being muted on the issue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell derided it as a "monthly welfare deposit" late last month. Now Graham is opening a new line of criticism against the new social benefit as the GOP tries to counter-program against Democrats touting it as an anti-poverty measure.
The South Carolina Republican later told Insider he would oppose extending the credit once it comes up for a vote next year.
Yet not every Senate Republican may share that position. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska declined to answer when asked by Insider if she would support extending the child benefit next year.
Early research indicates the first month of payments in July kept 3 million children out of poverty and helped feed 2 million kids. A recent analysis from researchers at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, Barnard College, and Bocconi University found "very small" impacts from the payments on overall employment, suggesting that the credit isn't keeping parents from going back to work.