TAX CUTS AFFECT WOMEN
Bush Tax Cuts Are Un-American
The majority of Americans believe in basic American ideals:
equal opportunity in employment and education and governmental
programs that protect and nurture our most vulnerable citizens.
Critical to these goals is an equitable and progressive
tax system
It is a fundamental truth that taxes are the dues we pay
for a just government. Taxes are not a burden. Without taxes,
the government cannot fund the very programs that we look
to in order to protect our own interests: social security,
Medicare and Medicaid, education programs. Without tax revenues,
there can be no enforcement of federal laws concerning civil
rights, environmental protection, or workplace protection.
Furthermore, a progressive tax system is equitable. It
ensures that taxes are assessed by ability to pay. Through
tax assistance and tax credits, it helps struggling families
make ends meet. Most fundamentally, it promotes an equitable
society, where the poor are not penalized for being poor,
and the rich are not permitted to reap the benefits of government
without contributing to its upkeep.
And yet the Bush Administration has hijacked our national
budget in order to give outrageous rewards to the super-rich,
at the expense of our most cherished national ideals.
No greater proof of this basic fact is the debacle visited
upon the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina,
where thousands of innocent men, women, and children were
exposed to unnecessary danger as the result of foolish budget
decisions and incompetent political appointments.
Women and children in particular are vulnerable to the
Bush policy of tax slash and burn. Low- and moderate- income
women disproportionately depend on the very programs that
are cut to the bone to pay for his tax cuts. Here are a
few examples:
* Housing -within five years,
cuts in housing voucher benefits will equal $6 billion-the
equivalent to vouchers for 800,000 families.
* Supplemental Nutrition Program
for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)-funding cuts in WIC,
the program that ensures proper nutrition for poor children
and their mothers, would result in 450,000 fewer recipients
by 2009.
* Pell Grants-the level of these
grants, which help students to meet higher education costs,
would be frozen at 2003 levels, despite marked increases
in the cost of higher education. Women represent 63.5% of
Pell grant recipients, making these grants critical for
women's continued access to higher education.
* Federal grants to state and local governments
-federal contributions for all state and local
governments-everything from Medicaid to transportation to
law enforcement- will be cut to the bone because of tax
cuts.
Yet the very people who suffer the most from these tax
cuts receive almost none of their benefits. In 2003, more
than half of all households received only $500 or less from
the tax cuts. At the same time, the cuts in services to
those same families will result in a net loss of income
for most of these families.
So who are the big winners? FOBs-Friends of Bush. The ones
who need it least. The average tax cut for millionaires
from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was about $113,000 in 2003.
This is five times the amount that a typical single mother
with children has to live on for an entire year!
Instead of being ashamed at such appalling greed, the Bush
Administration wants to lock these tax cuts in permanently.
These cuts would make our government unsupportable, forcing
even deeper cuts in services.
It is time to stop the madness and return to a sound tax
policy that reflects our nation's great heart: one that
enables the vulnerable to live in dignity and without fear
for the future, while ensuring that every citizen contributes
fairly to our society.
