Biden: Child tax credits to hit bank accounts on July 15
Child tax credits of up to $300 per kid will start hitting parents’ bank accounts on July 15, President Joe Biden announced Monday.
Setting an initial payment date for the first time, Biden hailed the monthly cash payments as a new way to help lift millions of children out of poverty.
“Folks, this Child Tax Credit is a huge step towards a tax system that works for the middle class,” Biden tweeted on his official @potus account.
The payments are a result of the decision to raise the child tax credit to $3,600 or $3,000 from $2,000.
Most low-income and middle-class parents of children under 6 years old will receive a monthly payment of $300 in the middle of the month, for a total of $1,800 in 2021. The remaining $1,800 can be claimed by parents on their 2021 federal income taxes.
For children from 6 to 17, the credit is $250 a month for a total of $3,000.
Like the COVID-19 relief stimulus payments, the monthly credits will be sent directly to taxpayers’ bank accounts, giving parents immediate access to the cash.
Parents making up to $112,500 a year are eligible. Anyone who has filed taxes and claimed a child on their return will automatically be enrolled in the program.
—New York Daily News
Florida Gov. DeSantis edges Trump in 2024 straw poll
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida man was the favorite of Western conservatives for president in 2024 — and it wasn’t the former president in Palm Beach.
Gov. Ron DeSantis topped the 2024 presidential approval poll at the Western Conservative Summit 2021 in Denver over the weekend, edging out former President Donald Trump by a count of 74.12% to 71.43%.
DeSantis’s straw poll win came during the same weekend in which he was the home state headliner at another conservative conference in Kissimmee, earning the nod to close out the event over former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Sen. Ron Paul, R-Ky.; and Donald Trump Jr. rounded out the top 10, with Pence just barely squeezing in over Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
DeSantis has been increasingly growing his profile among conservatives for his opposition to any coronavirus restrictions or mandates, including vaccination passports, and last week pardoned all Floridians who violated any local COVID-19 ordinances.
—Orlando Sentinel
More Cuban migrants land in Florida, but they likely won’t stay long
MIAMI — The recent spike in maritime migration from Cuba to South Florida shows no sign of slowing. Another group landed in the Florida Keys Monday morning.
The six men and two women arrived around 6:30 a.m. on a small fishing vessel in Duck Key, an island just north of the Middle Keys city of Marathon, the U.S. Border Patrol said.
Border Patrol spokesman Adam Hoffner said none in the group required serious medical attention.
The people told Border Patrol agents they spent two days at sea, Hoffner said. They will likely be sent back to Cuba aboard a Coast Guard cutter.
So far this fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, more Cubans have been stopped attempting the dangerous journey across the Florida Straits than at any time since fiscal year 2017, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The federal government tracks migration by fiscal years.
In 2016, Cubans who wanted to leave their homeland left in large numbers because they sensed then-President Barack Obama was about to end the Cold War-era “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy that allowed those who set foot on U.S. soil to stay in the country. Those caught at sea were sent home.
Their hunch was correct. Obama, in one of his last foreign policy decisions before leaving office, ended wet-foot, dry-foot in January 2017.
And, after he did, the number of migration attempts plummeted.
—Miami Herald
Trump pays legal fees for 2 Atlanta-area counties in election lawsuit
ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump has paid the attorneys’ fees of two metro Atlanta counties in a lawsuit that sought to overturn the presidential election results in Georgia.
Election officials in Cobb and DeKalb counties sought the fees in a Trump lawsuit Cobb called “meritless and legally deficient.” A hearing on those requests was set for this Friday.
But last week Trump paid the Cobb County Board of Elections $15,554 to cover its legal costs through June 1, the county’s attorney confirmed. Trump’s attorney confirmed the former president also has paid fees to DeKalb County, though the amount was not immediately available. DeKalb sought $6,105 in fees in a motion filed in February.
“The two motions (for attorneys’ fees) have been withdrawn. There was no settlement agreement,” Trump attorney Randy Evans told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The taxpayers in DeKalb and Cobb have been fully reimbursed. There are no other details because there are no other details.”
Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The payment of attorneys’ fees is the latest fallout from a barrage of failed lawsuits that sought to overturn the presidential election in Georgia and other swing states won by Biden. In some of those lawsuits, the plaintiffs or their attorneys face possible sanctions or disciplinary action. Others face defamation lawsuits for spreading conspiracy theories about the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia elections.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
