Colorado Senator Michael Bennet was interviewed on national television numerous times in the days after the American Rescue Act was signed. The child tax credits in the Act are based on the American Family Act that Bennet and Sen. Sherrod Brown first introduced in the Senate in 2017.

During the Democratic primary, Sen. Bennet ran on his American Family Act, which was subsequently endorsed by the Biden-Harris campaign and now has been included in the American Rescue Act.

“In a way, this is my dream come true,” he says. It’s an idea he’s been working on for several years. Under the American Rescue Act, the child tax credit is expanded from $2,000 to $3,000 for children ages 6 and 17, and $3,600 for children 5 and younger. For the first time in the U.S., families will qualify to receive the child tax credit as a monthly stipend. These monthly payments will provide up to $300 per child from July to year end, and the remainder of the credit can be claimed on 2021 tax returns.

This increased child tax credit that will reduce child poverty in the U.S. by 50%, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, has only been approved for one year; Bennet is already at work to get it extended. Given the polling on this provision of the bill when it was passed (95% of Democrats support the bill, 73% of Republicans support this provision), Bennet says, “I think we are in an incredibly good place to make an argument about why we should make it permanent.”