A Small Advocacy Victory

Trying to make the world a better place through altering public policy comes with very few and difficult to trace wins. And it appears that I may have my first very small win.

In May, Governor Wes Moore signed the Budget and Reconciliation Act of 2025, which included updates to the state’s Child Tax Credit and rules around itemized deductions. Previously, the Child Tax Credit was $500 per child under age 6 for families with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $15,000 or less. Families earning even one dollar more got nothing. This is called a cliff, and it’s bad policy. A parent should not accidentally cost their family a $500 tax credit by picking up an extra shift at work. The new law eliminates the cliff by phasing out the credit gradually. Families lose $50 for every $1,000 in income over $15,000.

Another important change is a new cap on itemized deductions. Previously, wealthy individuals could itemize deductions without limit. Now, there’s a ceiling. Taxpayers with a federal AGI above $200,000 must reduce their allowable deductions by 7.5 percent of the amount over $200,000.

For example, a household earning $500,000 with $50,000 in itemized deductions would now be capped at $27,500. Here’s the math:

$500,000 − $200,000 = $300,000

7.5% of $300,000 = $22,500

$50,000 − $22,500 = $27,500

Leading up to the 2025 session, I emailed every State Senator and Delegate to request a meeting and met with more than 50 to advocate for a plan to phase out itemized deductions and use the revenue to expand the Child Tax Credit and end the cliff. After working with one Delegate to draft a bill, I was ultimately ghosted and the bill never came. Yet, watered down versions of these proposals ended up in the Budget Reconciliation bill, and are now the new law of Maryland.

I’ll never know if my advocacy led to these changes or not (though I’m not aware of a single other person advocating for such reforms), but I do feel some joy knowing that my advocacy and policy work can trickle down into reforms, even if the path isn’t as clear as proposal, bill drafting, introduction, law, etc.

Sometimes I worry that I’ll just be screaming (and writing) into the void forever. If I’m honest, one of my deepest fears is that all of my work is a waste of time and will not improves peoples lives. But the world will never give us certainty that our efforts will be fruitful. Still, we have to try. The work continues.