In a largely bipartisan 357-70 vote, the US House of Representatives passed a $78 billion tax bill on Wednesday. The bill is being called the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 and includes a child tax credit expansion and reinstates business deductions that were rescinded during the Trump administration. It now goes to the Senate for a vote.

Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the bipartisan tax bill and what should be added to the bills to better help Americans.

MacGuineas elaborates on the nature of the bill: "We have seen temporary tax policies used as a gimmick for many, many years, and it's getting worse, not better. That's definitely part of this bill, which will be paid for on a temporary basis. If you look at those policies... the cost of the bill could be as high as almost $650 billion over a decade. So, I think we have to look at the actual intentions of the policies and understand that by sort of gimmicking them through certain time windows, we really could be putting huge amounts of pressure on the budget and in the next couple of years at a time where we ill afford to do so because of the huge debt we already have."

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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, the House passing a $78 billion tax bill late Wednesday, putting Congress closer to expanding that child tax credit. The bipartisan bill is expected to help millions of low-income households, but it also provides key tax breaks to businesses and now heads to the Senate. Let's get to our next guest, Maya MacGuineas, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president, to discuss more. Maya, good to talk to you today. I can't help but note the vote here, approved by a vote of 357 to 70. It's not often you get bills like that today in such a polarized environment. What's your read on this bipartisan bill and its fate in the Senate?

MAYA MCGUINEAS: It is not often that you get to bills that have bipartisan support like that at all. And when you do, they are almost always debt-financed. So one of the notable things about this is that this bill is actually offset. They have made the point that our debt is so large that new policies, whether it's spending or tax, should be offset so that they don't add to the debt so that's even further progress.

There's still a couple of reservations I would point out about the bill, which is temporary tax policy is not the right way to do tax policy. What we really need is more certainty. But I think it does have broad-based support. And it may well pass in the Senate. There's not quite as much support there so far. There's still some reservations. But I think we could see this bill move forward and possibly become law by paring the child tax credit with some business credit tax-- some business taxes that are otherwise expiring or expired.