By Ashley Burnside

On January 14, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee held a hearing about the 2017 Trump tax law. The hearing was significant given the upcoming expiration of key provisions from the 2017 law without further action from Congress. The Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans have identified passing a tax package that extends these provisions as a top priority. Below are five key takeaways from the hearing:

1. The upcoming tax package should include a fully refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC).

Congress should make the CTC fully refundable permanently in the upcoming tax package. This would allow families with the lowest incomes to receive the full credit, including 19 million children whose families currently don’t earn enough to qualify for the full amount.

In 2021, under the American Rescue Plan Act, Congress temporarily expanded the CTC by increasing the size of the credit, making it available monthly, and making it fully refundable. These changes helped the child poverty rate decline by nearly half in the year the expansions were in effect.

Multiple lawmakers and witnesses uplifted the importance of expanding the CTC in the upcoming tax package, and the financial relief that this would bring to families. For example, Representative DelBene (D-WA-1) explained that 1 in 3 children are currently left out of the CTC due to how the credit is structured and advocated for a permanent expansion.

2. The tax package should include an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that adequately reaches workers without kids.

Under current law, the EITC does not benefit all workers with low and moderate incomes equally. Specifically, those without dependent children in the household get a much smaller credit than other workers, resulting in some workers being taxed deeper into poverty. Younger and older workers without dependent kids are ineligible for the EITC.

Representative Sewell (D-AL-7) brought up the importance of implementing an expanded EITC during the hearing, explaining that it is “a rising tide lifting all boats.” Congress should permanently expand the EITC available for workers without dependent children, and make younger and older workers eligible, like was done temporarily under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021.

3. We need to make investments in the care economy outside of the tax code.

Rather than spend over $4 trillion on a package that cuts taxes for billionaires, lawmakers should invest in the care economy. During the hearing, Representative Danny Davis (D-IL-7) highlighted that the 2017 tax law “does nothing to help parents afford child care.” Congress should invest in affordable child care, home- and community-based services, and a national paid and family medical leave policy.

4. How we pay for the tax package matters, and health care and food shouldn’t be cut to pay for it.

Lawmakers are threatening to pay for the tax package with cuts to critical public benefit programs, including Medicaid and SNAP food benefits. Representative DelBene brought up the harm this cut would have since Medicaid and Medicare “provide basic health care to low-income families, people with disabilities, and seniors.” Taking away health care and food benefits to pay for tax breaks for billionaires will widen inequality and hurt the economic prosperity for families throughout the nation.

5. We need a tax package that promotes equity and prosperity for all people.

During the hearing, Representative Sanchez (D-CA-38) emphasized that the 2017 Trump tax law exacerbated racial and income inequality. She cited that nearly 80 percent of the tax cuts provided to individuals in the 2017 tax law went toward white households, who only represent 67 percent of American taxpayers, and that the wealth of billionaires has nearly doubled since the enactment of the 2017 bill. In the upcoming tax package, we should focus on policy solutions that promote equity and prosperity for all rather than ones that continue to widen racial inequality.