Barbara Lee Opposes Tax Cut Package
For Immediate Release
December 17, 2010
Contact: Nicole Y. Williams
(202) 225-2661
Washington, DC – Tonight, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), voted in opposition to the Senate Tax Cut Package. The measure passed by a vote of 277-148. She released this statement.
“Today we are voting on a tax package that gives away $139 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans over the next two years, in exchange for $57 billion in unemployment compensation benefits for the next 13 months.
“For me and many of my colleagues, that math doesn't add up.
“I support extending unemployment benefits to workers and several of the tax provisions of the so called “deal” but we have to ask: at whose expense?
“Many Members are opposed to this bill because it is bad economic policy and it is morally wrong.
“On Friday the CBC, led by Rep. Bobby Scott, a member of the Budget Committee, proposed a substitute amendment to give working families a fair deal by eliminating the estate tax giveaway to the richest families in our country and extending:
- The middle income tax cuts
- unemployment insurance
- the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) – Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF)
- Build America Bonds
- Affordable Housing provisions
- the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Care Tax Credit.
“Our proposal would also protect social security by offering a tax rebate instead of a payroll tax holiday – to ensure that Social Security remains solvent for current and future generations of Americans – and it would create the same amount of jobs at half the cost.
“We should let the Bush tax breaks for the rich expire. Period. They are a big part of the current deficit in the first place. Extending them for another 2 years digs us deeper into this deficit hole - and we know who will end up paying for it.
“It won’t be the rich – it will be the poor, low income communities, and communities of color, who lack well paid lobbyists to look out for their interests on Capitol Hill.
“I am reminded of what our great drum major for justice, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called to our attention – ‘A bad check such as the one being written today will come back marked insufficient funds. But I refuse to believe that the vault of opportunity is bankrupt.’
“Instead of stuffing the stockings of the super rich, we need to stimulate direct job creation and economic recovery efforts.
“We should not leave the chronically unemployed, those who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, out of this deal. They should not be left out in the cold.
“We should not allow the other side of the aisle to shove tax breaks for the super rich down our throats in exchange for middle income tax cuts.
“As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said yesterday in opposition to the bill, ‘Working families must not continue to bear the cost of unnecessary giveaways to the wealthiest.’
“We must extend the middle income tax cuts, and those tax provisions that help working families, including unemployment compensation for those who have maxed out at 99 weeks.
“Now is not the time to go back to the failed Bush economic policies that got us into this mess.”
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