The Child Tax Credit, a key policy piece for the Biden Administration, lapsed Friday amid a congressional standoff over HR 5376, the Build Back Better Act. The tax credit would have been renewed for 2022 if the US Senate passed the Act before the end of 2021.

The American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021, established monthly payments to families rather than a yearly amount. Eligible families received $3600 for children under age six and $3000 for children between six and 17. Half of this money would be provided in the form of monthly payments, and the other half would be paid out once families claimed the credit on their 2021 tax return.

Build Back Better would make permanent these higher monthly payments as well as the credit’s full refundability. Full refundability can create negative federal tax liability, a refund, for the taxpayer. Without this provision, many families did not have enough income to qualify, and 27 million children were historically excluded from the program.

According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, expansions to the tax credit, including full refundability, “raise 4.1 million children above the poverty line…and cut the child poverty rate by more than 40 percent.” A 2021 study out of Columbia University suggests that the credit “is linked to better outcomes for children in families with low income, including better educational performance and attainment, higher earnings in adulthood, and better health.”

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has refused to support the act, citing its high price tag and the United States’ already “staggering” national debt. The Huffington Post reported that Manchin privately told colleagues he feared parents would spend the child tax credit on drugs instead of necessities for their children. But the Census Bureau reported that one third of parents last year spent the credit on school essentials, four in 10 parents used the money to pay off their mortgage, rent, or utilities, and nearly half of recipients spent it on food.

In December 2021, President Biden said he believed that Manchin would vote yes on the bill, “even in the face of fierce Republican opposition.”