President Obama to Propose Almost Doubling Child Care Tax Credit
President Barack Obama will propose nearly doubling the child-care tax credit for middle-class families on Monday, according to a White House official.
The proposal is one of five recommendations from the president’s Middle Class Task Force, which was established one year ago this week.
It comes as an increasingly populist White House struggles to regain political momentum among middle-class, independent voters frustrated by the slow pace of the economic recovery.
Obama will push to increase the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit rate from 20 to 35 percent for families making under $85,000 a year. Families making from $85,000 to $115,000 also would see an increase in their tax credit, the official noted.
At the same time, lower-income families would receive a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding, the largest one-year increase in two decades.
In addition, the White House will propose limiting a student’s federal loan payments to 10 percent of his or her income above a basic living allowance.
The administration also will push for the creation of a system of automatic workplace individual retirement accounts, requiring all employers to give workers the option of enrolling in a direct-deposit IRA.
Fourth, the White House will propose expanding tax credits to match retirement savings, while also enacting new safeguards to protect retirement savings.
EXCERPT FROM: CNN Politics
Contributor: CNN’s Suzanne Malveau
Full text available at CNN Politics.