“The economic impact of the expanded child tax credit was profound. According to one analysis by researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, the payments immediately lifted 3 million children out of poverty … Advocates for the policy hoped that the program would be extended, possibly as part of President Joe Biden’s bigger social and environmental spending proposal, Build Back Better. But Republican senators were uniformly opposed to Build Back Better, as was Sen. Joe Manchin, who said he specifically couldn’t support extending the expanded child tax credit due to its lack of a work requirement and its price tag … The effects of the expanded tax credit’s expiration were just as stark as its introduction: Child poverty increased 41 percent the first month after the credit expired.” Vox: The profound impact of giving American families a little more cash. The insanely wide economic divide is the core issue that underpins all of our other issues. The idea that, in the face of this chasm, it’s the poor who are getting an unfair advantage is so ridiculously risible that laughing oneself to death may soon pass starving in America’s morbidity ranking.