Follow this authorCatherine Rampell's opinions

So when the bill sailed through the House with broad bipartisan support, it renewed hope that our dysfunctional legislature might be able to govern sometimes after all.

Alas, that hope was premature. Today, Republican senators are trying to kill the legislation, with some of its GOP supporters saying it’s on “life support.”

Their colleagues’ objections are all over the place, and none of them particularly compelling. Some worry about handing President Biden a win so close to the election. (I’d argue the 400,000 kids lifted out of poverty would be the real winners, but to each their own.) Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said this explicitly in January: “Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be reelected.”

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A related explanation is that Republicans hope to win control of Congress and the White House this November, after which they could abandon their silly, kid-conscious compromise with Democrats and just push for bigger tax breaks for businesses.

If that’s the strategy, it’s a strange one for many reasons. Among them: The bill includes tax breaks that had lapsed in the past couple of years, and the business community has been adamant about retroactively restoring them now. Not next year, when Republicans might or might not have more power.

“Many employers, especially small businesses, have struggled with the unexpected tax bill created by the lapse in these provisions,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told me. “Asking employers to wait until the next Congress is effectively asking them to make a loan to the federal government in the hopes that they might get paid back in 2025 or 2026.”

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Some senators allege more substantive concerns. For instance, Mike Crapo (Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, complained that the child tax credit measures might discourage parents from working, even though the bill has an explicit earnings requirement (i.e., it is available only if families work). When Crapo identified the specific provision that bothered him, his Democratic counterpart, Committee Chair Ron Wyden (Ore.) offered to take it out of the bill.

Yet Crapo has not been mollified. He and his Senate colleague Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have also complained about the bill’s........

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