WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many parents know that the monthly child tax credit payments arrive on the 15th of the month.

It's a benefit that started in July and continues at least through December.

The child tax credit payments are meant to offset the cost of raising children.

The average benefit to parents is around $250 to $300 per month, per child, depending on the child’s age.

NOT PERMANENT

The future of the monthly payments is unclear.

Currently, they expire in December. Many Democrats in Congress want it to be included in the progressive spending package that is being negotiated in Congress, but nothing is certain.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who supports making the benefit permanent, has also made clear in recent days that if anything is going to pass the House and Senate, the original $3.5 trillion price tag will have to be cut.

That means funding for policy proposals like universal pre-K subsidized child care, paid family leave and the expanded child tax credit will either have to be reduced or eliminated.

No final decisions have been made.

Speaker Pelosi said this week she'd prefer to include more items in the legislation, but offer them for less time.

"Timing would be reduced in many cases to make the costs lower," Pelosi said.

INFLUENTIAL SENATOR

Of course, everything will need to go through Sen. Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia whose support is needed to pass any spending legislation.

Manchin has already said he won’t vote for something that is too costly. He has encouraged other Democrats to pick one priority, not several.

Manchin has also suggested the child tax credit should require a parent to work in order to receive it.

Currently unemployed parents can benefit.

If the monthly child tax credit is cut out of the bill or reduced in scope at all, it could mean a spike in child poverty next year.

In June of this year, before the tax credit, 15.8% of children were living in poverty in the U.S., according to research done by Columbia University.

In July, after the first payment, it went down to 11.9%.

That’s 3 million fewer children living in poverty.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders and moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin have struck a deal over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam that had stalled the party’s showpiece $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

The compromise, announced by the West Virginia lawmaker and a Democratic aide, seems to clear the way for the Senate to begin a climactic, marathon series of votes expected to lead to approval of the sweeping legislation.

Democrats had already set aside one battle over boosting the minimum wage.

Manchin is probably the chamber’s most conservative Democrat, and a kingmaker in a 50-50 Senate that leaves his party without a vote to spare.

CNN —

Senators on both sides of the aisle said Wednesday evening there's an agreement with White House officials and 10 senators on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, with senators planning to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday to discuss it.

GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said it's fully paid for and offsets the new spending.

"Everyone in that room agreed on the framework," Manchin said.

The pay-fors have been fully agreed to as well, Romney said.

The next 24 hours could determine whether two of President Joe Biden's major bipartisan priorities — infrastructure and policing legislation — will collapse.

Related video: What's the deal with infrastructure?

"We have a framework and we are going to the White House tomorrow," Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the key GOP infrastructure negotiators, said.

Sen. Rob Portman, another lead GOP negotiator, said after leaving the meeting with the bipartisan group and White House officials that they were able to "get there" on the pay-fors, but still have some final details to workout.

"I think we have a good balanced group of pay-fors, and that was important to both sides. I will say, in good faith, we tried to get there. We didn't agree on everything, but we were able to get there," he said when asked to characterize where negotiations stand on the pay-fors of the infrastructure package.

Asked if they have a framework, Portman said he wouldn't use "exactly those words" Cassidy had, "but I would say, that we're very, very close."

"We're going to go back to our respective staffs and work out the details," he added.

He also confirmed they were invited to meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday and he will be attending.

Staffers on both sides still have to write the legislative language of their agreement, but they say the White House has signed off on the topline numbers and the pay-fors.

"White House senior staff had two productive meetings today with the bipartisan group of Senators who have been negotiating about infrastructure," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday evening. "The group made progress towards an outline of a potential agreement, and the President has invited the group to come to the White House tomorrow to discuss this in person."

Ahead of a two-week Senate recess, senators are struggling to finalize two far-reaching bipartisan deals that are the pillars of Biden's agenda. If they don't finalize an agreement, Democrats will try to go it alone on infrastructure — a risky gambit that has no guarantee of success. And there likely won't be any new policing legislation this Congress without Republican backing.

On infrastructure, a bipartisan group of senators huddled again with White House officials to try and find an agreement on how to pay for their $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan after a series of meetings Tuesday failed to yield an agreement. More officials were scheduled to meet with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday as well.

It comes at a key moment: As Democratic leaders are looking at employing the budget reconciliation process to approve a sweeping plan -- potentially as high as $6 trillion — a move that can't be filibustered in the Senate. But it would need the support of all 50 Democrats, something several have yet to back as they've called for bipartisan talks instead.

"We're fast approaching" the time to "fish or cut bait," Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, told CNN of the bipartisan group's efforts.

A proposed compromise on voting rights now has the support of a key advocate.

Stacey Abrams says she "absolutely could" support Senator Joe Manchin's proposed changes to the Democrats' elections package and that she'll look to Senate Democratic leaders to build on it to protect voters and reverse state-level restrictions.

"Basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography. Those provisions that he is setting forth are strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state and, I think, will ensure that every American has improved access to the right to vote despite the onslaught of state legislations seeking to restrict access to the right to vote," Abrams said.

But the top Republican in the Senate calls Manchin's changes unacceptable and says the legislation isn't necessary at all.

"I've taken a look at all these new state laws, none of them are designed to suppress the vote. There is no rational basis for the federal government trying to take over all of American elections," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell doesn't expect the bill to get support from Republicans, which would be necessary to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. 

This story originally reported by Kamil Zawadzki on Newsy.com.

WASHINGTON —

Bracing for political trouble, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Democratic colleagues that June will "test our resolve" as senators return Monday to consider infrastructure, voting rights and other stalled-out priorities at a crucial moment in Congress.

Six months into the party's hold on Washington, with Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats controlling the House and Senate, there is a gloomy uncertainty over their ability to make gains on campaign promises.

As Democrats strain to deliver on Biden's agenda, the limits of bipartisanship in the 50-50 Senate are increasingly clear: Talks over an infrastructure package are teetering, though Biden is set to confer again Monday with the lead GOP negotiator, and an ambitious elections overhaul bill is essentially dead now that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced his opposition Sunday.

"We need to move the ball," said Yvette Simpson, CEO of Democracy for America, a liberal advocacy organization.

"We told everyone to come out against all odds in the pandemic and vote," she said about the 2020 election. The promise was that with Democrats in power, "we're going to have all these great things happen, their lives are going to be better. And what they're finding is that it looks like Washington as usual."

The summer work period is traditionally among the busiest for Congress, but Democrats are growing wary because time is running out for Biden to negotiate a sweeping infrastructure package and other priorities are piling up undone. The days ahead are often seen as a last chance at legislating before the August recess and the start of campaigns for next year's elections.

Related video: Biden touts economic progress

Schumer, in setting the agenda, is challenging senators to prepare to make tough choices. But he is also facing a test of his own ability to lead the big-tent party through a volatile period of shifting priorities and tactics in the aftermath of the Trump era and the Capitol insurrection.

While Democratic senators have been generating goodwill by considering bipartisan bills in the evenly split Senate, they face mounting pressure from voters who put them in office to fight harder for legislation that Republicans are determined to block with the filibuster. Democrats in the evenly split Senate hold the majority because Vice President Kamala Harris can be the tie breaker,

Key among that legislation is S.1, the elections and voting overhaul bill, which now appears headed for defeat. But Schumer also said votes may be coming on gun control legislation and the Equality Act, a House-passed bill to ensure civil rights for the LGBTQ community.

Fed up by the delays, some senators are ready to change the rules to eliminate the filibuster, which they blame for the inaction. The long-running Senate filibuster rules require 60 votes to advance most legislation, meaning as many as 10 Republicans would need to cross party lines to help Democrats achieve their priorities. Some senators propose reducing the voting threshold to 51.

But Manchin, in announcing his opposition to the voting rights bill Sunday as the "wrong piece of legislation to bring our country together," also restated his refusal to end the filibuster — for now, denying his party a crucial vote needed to make the rules change that could help advance its agenda.

Without support from Manchin or others, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who also wants to keep the filibuster, Schumer is all but warning that Democratic senators will be forced to confront the limits of their fragile majority. That could exacerbate party divisions and expose Democrats to criticism from Republicans eager to show that Biden's party cannot govern.

"The June work period will be extremely challenging," Schumer warned. "I want to be clear that the next few weeks will be hard and will test our resolve as a Congress and a conference."

Schumer has been laying the groundwork for this moment since he became majority leader in January, trying to build the case that bipartisanship can work in some cases — with passage of an Asian hate crimes bill or a water public work package — but also has its limits, according to two Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss the private strategy.

Their weekly closed-door policy caucus lunches have been intense, particularly during the two special sessions they have held to privately debate the path forward on the voting rights bill, one of the aides said.

Senators rise from their seats one by one to ask pointed questions or state their views on the elections overhaul, which many Democrats view as crucial to protecting democracy, especially as states led by Republicans impose restrictive new voting laws.

Manchin's opposition delivers a serious blow to the election bill, which has taken on urgency for Democrats as former President Donald Trump encourages the changes in the states, not dissimilar from the way he egged on his supporters to "fight like hell" for his presidency before they stormed the Capitol on the Jan. 6.

Rather than force reluctant senators to fall in line, Schumer is trying to lead Democrats to their own conclusion — either bipartisan deals with Republicans are possible or they have no other choice but to undertake a go-it-alone strategy on infrastructure or other priorities, the aides said.

One aide suggested Schumer is no arm-twisting leader in the style of Lyndon Johnson, who before he became president was famous for his hardball cajoling as majority leader.

In the letter to colleagues released the day Republicans deployed the filibuster to block the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection, Schumer took stock of the gains so far. But he said: "We have also seen the limits of bipartisanship."