After a marathon 18-hour markup session, the House Ways and Means Committee finally passed their portion of text for the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill. The text, which passed by a vote margin of 26-19, includes significant conservative policy goal victories. The next step will be for the Senate to preserve and build upon those wins.

A major provision that Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) has been advocating for is a strengthened Child Tax Credit (CTC). A longstanding pro-family, pro-life policy, the CTC provides needed relief to Americans struggling with the financial burden that comes with raising a family. But the current $2,000 credit is much less valuable than it was in 2017 due to inflation. There is also another reason that it is imperative that Congress act to strengthen the CTC now through reconciliation; if they do not, the credit is due to roll back to the pre-2017 amount of $1,000 this year.

Strengthening the CTC has not only been a goal of CWALAC and other advocacy groups; it was also a staple of now Vice-President JD Vance’s message on the campaign trail. That messaging proved effective, as Congress is now taking action to ensure the CTC not only continues but will be a more effective boost to families.

In the Ways and Means bill, the CTC is increased to $2,500 through 2028. After that, the $2,000 level will be permanent, meaning families will not have to worry about losing it in a few years. Additionally, the bill would also index the credit to inflation. If implemented, all of these provisions would make the CTC more powerful and more beneficial.

The bill contains a number of other conservative wins. One of those is the expansion of 529 Education Savings Accounts to include homeschool expenses. In the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts, 529s were expanded to include private school and extracurricular expenditures. Congress tried to include homeschoolers back then as well, but that specific language did not survive the Senate’s infamous Byrd Rule, the procedural tool used to ensure that the reconciliation bill only includes strictly budgetary matters. However, in this post-COVID era, homeschooling is far more mainstream than it was once upon a time. Legislators are hoping that the provision will not face the same opposition that it did in 2017 and will make it into the final bill.

A popular school choice provision also made it into the text. The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would encourage people to donate to scholarship-granting organizations by giving them a tax credit for their contribution. These organizations make it possible for low-income students to receive a non-public school education, either by covering private school tuition, the cost for tutoring services, or extracurricular opportunities they would not have access to otherwise.

However, when this bill makes its way to the Senate, legislators on that side of Capitol Hill will need to fix the language regarding the ECCA. The bill, as introduced, included a critical provision that would protect the religious liberty of any schools participating in the program. But when the text was included in the Ways and Means bill, that provision was cut out.

This is a mistake that absolutely must be fixed before the program is implemented. As the majority of private schools are religiously affiliated, not having legal protection from the government that they will be free to operate in accord with their religion means that they will not be able to participate in the program, robbing the bill of its ability to actually expand school choice.

While it’s exciting to see so many excellent wins for American families make it through the Ways and Means committee process, and we are grateful to the Congressional allies who made it happen, this is just one step in the long and complex reconciliation process. Next, it will be combined with the bills from the other House committees to be voted on by the entire House of Representatives before being sent to the Senate. It will then be in the Senate’s hands to preserve these provisions and make necessary fixes to strengthen them. CWALAC will continue to track the process closely and fight to ensure that the final bill is one that protects life, promotes family, and protects liberty.