Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

DIVIDEND TAX CUT COSTLY

Jan 08, 2003

DIVIDEND TAX CUT COSTLY ENOUGH TO PAY FOR CHILDREN'S COMPREHENSIVE
HEALTH CARE AND HEAD START
WASHINGTON - Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman
today noted that the cost of the Bush Administration's dividend tax cut
proposal is enough to provide comprehensive health care for all 9.2
million uninsured American children and Head Start for all the unserved
eligible and disadvantaged preschool children in need of comprehensive
services that prepare them for school and a productive future.
President
Bush today announced a $674 billion tax cut proposal that includes
eliminating taxes individuals pay on stock dividends.

STATEMENT OF MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
The President's proposal provides strikingly irresponsible tax cuts,
borrowing money we don't have to spend where it isn't needed. Our
responsibility to our children requires that we reject the billions in
giveaways masquerading as economic stimulus.
The President has chosen to hand millionaires another $27,000 each by
eliminating the tax on stock dividends, while taxpayers earning $30,000
- $40,000 would get only $42, according to the Urban
Institute/Brookings
Institution Tax Policy Center. Adding the dividend tax cut to the
income
tax cuts already passed, millionaires will receive a whopping $130,000
when the cuts are fully in place. Estate tax cuts will add even more.
In
stark contrast, hard working parents struggling to support their
children on low wages will not get any help from the speed-up of the
child tax credit proposed by the Administration.
In a time of important choices, this greed is shameful in the face of
other needs. The cost of the dividend tax cut could provide
comprehensive health care for all 9.2 million uninsured American
children and Head Start for all unserved eligible preschoolers in need
of comprehensive services that prepare them for school and a productive
future. The same Administration that starves and freezes children's
services is willing to heap more money on millionaires.

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Please check out today's Washington Post editorial about President
Bush's proposed tax cut.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25017-2003Jan7.html