Diverse coalition of faith leaders advocate for expanded child tax credit

Faith leaders joined members of Congress on Capitol Hill Thursday to voice support for the expansion of the child tax credit, urging lawmakers to reinstate a broader version of the anti-poverty benefit before the end of the year.

“For many of us, this is a season of miracles—the miracle of Jesus’s birth, the miracle of Hanukkah,” said Abibat Rahman-Davies of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group. “But expanding the CTC? That shouldn’t take a miracle.”

The event was part of a sustained advocacy push by faith leaders from across the theological spectrum, with liberal-leaning religious groups and conservative evangelical organizations joining forces to encourage lawmakers to embrace an expanded version of the credit that helps combat child poverty. Earlier this year, the group published an advertisement in Politico Magazine and sent a letter to all 535 members of Congress and to the White House asking them to make the child tax credit “fully refundable and available to low-income families on a permanent basis.”