Bush Tax: Tax Cuts For Rich Kids
The Progress Report
The Washington Post
calls a new child tax credit proposal, targeted at families earning as
much as $309,000, “unnecessary, misguided and irresponsible.” The bill,
up this week in the House of Representatives, “is the most egregious
part of a House tax-cutting spree that altogether would add more than
$500 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to
estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy
Center. The House would not only make permanent the $1,000-per-child
tax credit enacted as part of the 2001 tax cut but would dramatically
increase the income limits for eligibility.”
Meanwhile, “For families earning less than $10,750, however, the House
bill would do nothing. Thus, a family with a parent working full-time
at the minimum wage ($10,300) would get no benefit from the bill.” This
is not the first time the president's child tax credit proposals have
left lower income children behind. Click here for more from American Progress.
(more)
Bush Tax: Stiffing Low-Income Kids in Iowa
Center for American Progress and Citizens for Tax Justice
Last
year, as part of the Administration's tax package, Congress accelerated
virtually all of the income tax cuts that had been adopted in 2001.
Yet, inexplicably, both Bush and the Republican majority determined not
to accelerate a scheduled increase in the child tax credit available
for lower income families as part of their package. Thus, while
millions of middle and upper income households received substantial
benefits, the most needful working families with children were left out
in the cold. As the Washington Post stated, “Stiffing these children
was not an oversight .”
A
measure to correct this “negligence” was debated by Congress last year.
It passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 94-2, and Bush vowed to
sign it. However, when the bill stalled in Conference, Bush, despite
his purported compassion for these families, allowed the bill to die.
Those
affected by this regressive omission, numbering about 12 million
children, include children of 200,000 military families, many with
members serving in Iraq and other combat zones, support workers in
schools and hospitals and other hard-working Americans.
In Iowa,
Citizens for Tax Justice estimate that increasing the refundability
percentage for the child credit from 10% to 15%, as the Senate bill
would have allowed for families with children under 17, would have
helped 39,000 more families and 72,000 more children, which means that
an additional 11% of Iowa families with children under 17 would have
gotten this important relief.
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