MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Sherrod Brown

Interview

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Senator Sherrod Brown is a Democrat from Ohio, the chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and he joins me now. Senator, I want to start with you on the child tax credit. That is something that you`ve been advocating for very long time. It was included in the first piece of legislation, the American rescue plan. Tens of millions if I`m not mistaken, households with children have been getting a monthly payment from the government.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Yes, tens of millions. 60 million, yes.

HAYES: Tens of millions. That is going to expire. So, one of the priorities was to put that in the reconciliation bill. Where does it stand right now?

BROWN: Well, it`s in. I mean, we had three goals. One is to -- most importantly to extend it. Second, to make sure that it didn`t -- that it didn`t have restrictions, low-income restrictions, that it didn`t cut people off if they didn`t file a w-2, all those kinds of things. And third, to extend it as long as we could.

And I mean, you know, this is the most important thing I`ve ever done in my career is getting the child tax credit. I worked on it for eight years. The best day of my career when we passed it and -- but the best thing is reading these stories online from people that for the first time were getting this $250.00 a month.

We got it up and running, passed in March, up and running in July, monthly checks in July, August, September, October. The child poverty rates dropped 40 percent. I can`t think of anything that`s been that effective that quickly.

In the stories, a father said first time I can buy fastpitch softball equipment for my daughter. A mother said to me, I fly -- I can spend -- my son can go to summer camp for a weekend. It takes the pressure off these families that are -- that skimp the last week of the month just to pay their rent. It relieves their anxiety. It`s $250.00 or $300.00 a month per child depending on the age of the child. I mean, it`s made a huge difference in families` lives.

HAYES: But given that, I mean, all of that -- we`ve covered on the show and I think it`s been quite a success. I think both substantively, politically, I think it`s been a success, right? Just -- I don`t know how honestly you`re going to answer the question but I`ll ask anyway.

Like, how does it feel to have -- I mean, to be like the best thing I`ve ever done, I worked on it for eight years, got it passed, and now it`s like please Joe Manchin, don`t kill it. Please, please, don`t kill it. Like, what is that conversation like?

BROWN: Yes. Well, it`s a conversation. It`s a regular conversation. Manchin -- don`t forget Manchin joined 45 of us, Joe and I and 45 other Democrats sponsored this bill earlier in the year or it`s last year. But a bill to do exactly what this bill does, so everybody`s on record. We passed it by one vote, keep in mind, twice 51 to 50 back in, I guess, in early March.

So, everybody`s on record is being for this. Joe is just looking at keeping the price tag down in some of those things. But the fact is that this is -- I mean, imagine next year, you`re a Republican candidate running for the -- for Congress in the Senate and, you know -- and you`re in a debate and somebody says well -- or more importantly, somebody comes up to the street and says hey, I`ve been getting this child tax credit now for a couple of years. It`s made all the difference in the world to pay my rent, to provide child care for my -- for my kids. Are you going to vote to take it away or whose side are you on?

So, this is -- you say it`s been good subsequently and politically. It`s not been as good politically as it should because we`re not talking about it enough. Democrats were all talking -- always talking about the next package. We should be talking about the successes here and extending those successes because they`re so important to so many families.

HAYES: You just mentioned child care. I want to ask you. There`s a child care provision of this legislation. There`s a few different things, universal pre-k. There`s a child care provision and it`s sort of structured somewhat similarly the ACA sort of sliding scale subsidy payments for households that have kids under a certain amount of age.

And there was an analysis today by a sort of online progressive think tank that was very worried about it having some of the problems the ACA had which is folks that were just a little above that subsidization level finding themselves with a big expense all of a sudden. I remember interviewing folks and I`m sure you talked to people in Ohio after the ACA passed that were not getting the subsidies in the exchange and felt like suddenly they had this unaffordable thing.

And I wonder if that`s a thing that you`re talking about in your caucus about the design of this program to make sure that doesn`t end up happening.

BROWN: Yes. I mean, two things about that, Chris. Thank you for bringing that up. One is I think we learned something from ACA because ACA was sort of unplowed ground in how it was rolled out. You know, it took too long to pass. It was this sort of -- Max Baucus, the chair of the finance committee, have assembled this group of bipartisan people and senators from small states and it took forever to do it.

So, we learned the process. I mean, I think we -- I think we`re learning that lesson. We haven`t learned it well enough yet. But the other thing is it emphasizes is, you know, a whole lot of senators don`t think enough about how hard it is to raise children, how hard it is financially, and how hard it is just to be a parent.

And it`s what binds so many of us together. For me, as you know, Chris, it`s grandchildren. I`ve watched my kids struggled just how hard it is to raise children, to balance work and home life, and the kids` education particularly during a pandemic. And we need to keep that front and center as we talk about child care, as we talk about tax credits, as we talk about grant subsidies or housing construction and access. All of that is -- all of that is -- hold together.

HAYES: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, thank you so much for your time tonight, sir. That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.

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