ICYMI: Houston County Mom and Marine Veteran Thanks Biden and Democrats for Delivering Middle-Class Tax Cuts, Blasts Republicans for Opposing Relief

‘Georgians sent President Biden to the White House to build back our middle class better and stronger than before, and this historic tax cut for working families like mine is a huge step toward fulfilling that promise.’ 

On Saturday, July 17, working mom and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Courtney Driver penned a letter-to-the-editor in the Houston Home Journal praising President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Georgia Democrats for delivering a historic tax cut to help middle class families get back on their feet through the Child Tax Credit program — and blasting Brian Kemp, Georgia Republicans, and the entire GOP Senate field for opposing this critical relief.

Read Courtney Driver’s Letter-to-the-Editor here:

Dear Editor,

As a veteran and working mom, the past year has been tough on my young daughter and me. Even before the pandemic, juggling both family life and work life was no easy feat. But once COVID-19 hit Georgia and the nation last year, our family was thrown into a whirlwind trying to balance childcare, paying bills on time and staying safe and healthy at the same time. The difficult task of keeping my daughter and myself stable during a pandemic was burdensome, but thanks to President Biden and Democrats’ American Rescue Plan, help is here for my family and families across Georgia.

In Georgia, 88% of all adults and 88% of all children benefited from the $1,400 stimulus payments in the American Rescue Plan that helped families stay afloat and revitalized our state’s economy. And this week, the Biden-Harris administration is continuing its work to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out by providing additional relief for households like mine. On Thursday, 91% of all Georgia families will begin receiving payments as part of the expanded Child Tax Credit program included in Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Biden’s tax cut for middle-class families like mine will provide monthly relief of up to $1,600 per child to the families of more than 2.2 million children in Georgia through December.

Across the country, this tax cut will lift 11 million people out of poverty and benefit 66 million kids, cutting child poverty nearly in half. The impact is even greater here in Georgia, where our state’s overall child poverty rate will be reduced from 13.6% to 5.9%. The significance of the Child Tax Credits will be felt by families across Georgia for generations to come.

However, despite the enormous impact this will have on the most vulnerable families in our state, Governor Kemp and every single Georgia Republican in Congress opposed expanding the Child Tax Credit program and its tax cuts for American families. Georgia Republicans stooped to a new low, refusing to put their partisanship aside to support low-income and middle class families even during a once-in-a-generation pandemic. In 2017, Georgia Republicans in Congress didn’t hesitate to give tax breaks to the wealthy, but when our children in Georgia needed them the most, they turned their backs on them. And if any of the Republicans vying to challenge Senator Reverend Warnock in 2022 were in office when he helped pass the American Rescue Plan, they would have blocked this tax cut from reaching Georgia families like mine without shame or second thought.

Too many parents across our state have had to make impossible decisions over these past 16 months – between the groceries or the credit card bill, rent or gas, the insurance bill or the power bill. With a kid in the house, keeping them happy, healthy and fed is a full-time job in itself. Now, as our state continues to recover from the pandemic, this tax cut for families will help revitalize the economy and get parents back on their feet.

Georgians sent President Biden to the White House to build back our middle class better and stronger than before, and this historic tax cut for working families like mine is a huge step toward fulfilling that promise. We were there for President Biden in November; he has been there for us every day since.

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