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July 15, 2026. Exactly five years ago, on July 15, 2021, I wrote today, Americans began to see the concrete effects of the American Rescue Plan show up in their bank accounts as the expanded Child Tax Credit goes into effect for one year. Through this program, the child tax credit increased to $3,000 per child aged 6 to 17 and $3,600 per child under 6. All working families will get the full credit if they make up to $150,000 for a couple or $112,500 for a family with a single parent. The government sent payments for almost 60 million children on Thursday totaling $15 billion. This is a really big deal in America. One in seven children lives in poverty. This measure is expected to cut that poverty nearly in half. Studies suggest that addressing childhood poverty continues to pay off over time as it helps adults achieve higher levels of mobility. The American Rescue plan, passed in March 2021, was an early achievement of the Biden presidency, becoming a signature law as every Republican voted against it. A year later, researchers at the Brookings Institute found that the temporary expansion of the Child tax credit lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty before it expired on December 31, 2021. Family members did not stop working, as critics said they would. Instead, they used the money to cover routine expenses, decreasing their reliance on credit cards, had better nutrition, and made long term investments in education for both children and parents. Now, five years later, the results of the Republicans signature One Big Beautiful Bill act, or obbbba, passed without a single Democratic vote and signed into law last July are revealing a very different set of priorities. The OBBBA extended or expanded more than 4.5 trillion dol in tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, while cutting more than a trillion dollars from social welfare programs. It did increase the Child Tax credit, but less than it would have if Congress had just adjusted the credit based on inflation, since it had set the amount in 2017. And according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute of Tax and Economic Policy, the benefits from the OBBBA measure went mostly to the richest fifth of Americans, dropping essentially to zero by the time they got to the poorest fifth. The measure cut $187 billion in federal funding from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or snap. And on Monday, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that between the passage of The OBBBA in July 2025 and March 2026, the last month for which there is data from all states, more than 4 million people lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. At least a quarter of those people are children Those losses will mount in 2027 after the midterm elections, when states will have to assume much more of the costs of the program. At the center of the difference between the Democrats signature bill and the Republicans is how the representatives of those parties see the purpose the American government. Should it be used for the good of the American people or to concentrate wealth and power among a few. On July 9, Carol Leonig and Ken Delaney and of MSNOW reported that Trump's appointees in the Department of Justice are overruling the career attorneys in the antitrust division who have called for reviews of how corporate mergers and acquisitions might lead to price gouging for consumers and taxpayers. Trump appointed officials are pushing ahead without reviews designed to protect the American people from monopoly power and, in what former Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer called unilateral surrender, are not pursuing lawsuits to enforce antitrust laws. Consumers are getting really screwed by all of this, a source told Leonig and Delaneyn. We're talking 10 years of consumer harm that can't be undone. On Friday, Trump called a select group of Republicans who sit on the House Budget Committee to Camp David to put together a funding package, primarily for military funding, that they can get past Congress through budget reconciliation, a process that will not need any Democratic votes. Even the invitation to Camp David was controversial, though. Trump extended invitations to members of the far right Freedom Caucus but not to the more moderate Republicans on the committee. Invitations were secret and members phones were confiscated at Camp David. Budget Committee member Erin Houchen, a Republican of Indiana, told Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News that she was urging committee members to vote no on the package. Today, House Republicans released a $95 billion budget framework to provide another $73 billion for additional military funding for on Iran, a $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by Trump's tariff wars and $10 billion to enact aspects of the Save America measure. Trump has been unable to convince Congress to pass money for farmers was part of a sweetener to try to get Democrats on board with the measure, but it does not appear to be enough to get them to agree to fund an unpopular war and voter suppression, representative Brendan Boyle, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, the top ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro of the Federal News Network. I'm going to fight like hell to make sure taxpayer dollars are being used to lower costs and make life better for American families, not to bankroll Trump's giveaways to billionaires and endless wars overseas. This America Last budget would add tens of billions more to the national debt to fund the most unpopular war in American history, boyle said. Katie Edmondson of the New York Times noted that spending requests are usually dealt with through the bipartisan appropriations process, but Republicans are once again trying to maneuver around the Democrats to fund priorities. The Democrats reject an immigration enforcement surge that has led to two deaths at the hands of ICE agents in the past week and the war in Iran. Even Republicans don't appear to want to throw more money at the Iran war before the midterms, especially as the Pentagon has been opaque about the costs of the war and the White House has refused to confer with Congress about it. They also don't want to fund the unpopular voter suppression measure Trump wants, as prices for everyday Americans at the gas pump and grocery store are noticeably higher than they were a few months ago. Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican of Ohio, wrote on social media that the Republicans budget plan was DOA or dead on arrival. The deaths, six days apart of two immigrants, neither one of whom was the intended target of the operation during which they were shot and killed, has rekindled the unpopularity of the administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants. As protests broke out in the wake of the shooting death of Johann Sebastian Duran Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine yesterday, Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, called for Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen to cease all non urgent vehicle stops. Collins, who is running for re election, is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and was a key vote in the June measure that provided an additional $70 billion for immigration enforcement through 2029. As Margie O' Haron of the Brennan center noted, $70 billion is more than the budgets for all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. marshals Service. ICE issued a memo yesterday ordering agents to prioritize tactics other than traffic stops, prompting praise from Collins. But at 6:45 this morning, Trump insisted, incorrectly that the people ICE is rounding up are criminals and we have to get them out. In order to do this we must be strong, tough and smart and we cannot give up one of ice's most important and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop. Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal's hands. The radical left Democrats would like to see this done, but it won't happen on my watch. Ice, be judicious, fair and smart and go back and do your very important job. Keep those crime stats records coming. Remember, you are loved and respected in America. The Iran war is also back on the front burner On Monday, Trump announced he was reimposing a blockade on Iran and that the US Would become the guardian of the Hormuz Strait. Yesterday, he reversed course, claiming that Gulf allies had told him they would rather invest directly in the US Claiming that US Allies told him they would rather invest directly in the US Than pay tolls. Last night, Barack Ravid of Axios, who often has inside information from the White House, reported that Trump yesterday held a meeting in the Situation Room with his top national security team to discuss new plans for devastating strikes against Iran. Those in the room included Vice President J.D. vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Kaine, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and other senior officials, Ravid reported. Before the meeting, Trump told the Fox News Channel that after the hard strikes this week, next week, it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants, next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants, we're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate. Attacks on civilian infrastructure are usually illegal under international law. Nate Swanson, a former member of Trump's negotiating team, told foreign policy specialist Laura Rosen of Diplomatic that Trump's escalation was probably a ploy to kickstart further negotiations. I think it's a very risky and low probability gamble, but nothing else makes sense. I don't see a feasible pathway toward military victory, nor do I believe that we can militarily open the Strait of Hormuz against Iran's wishes. The more things change, the more they stay the same. When I wrote about the importance of the American rescue plan five years ago, I ended my discussion of it with the observation that this huge achievement of the Biden presidency, every single Republican voted against it, has taken a backseat in the news to two blockbuster stories about the former president.
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Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, MA. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.