Press Releases

WASHINGTON The version of the Bush Administration's tax cut bill this week adopted by the Senate Finance Committee—scaled back from the initial Administration proposal—sacrifices protections for millions of children to pay for massive new tax breaks tilted toward America's 189,795 millionaires, according to a state-by-state analysis today released by the Children's Defense Fund. The cost of the Senate's tax break package is more than enough to provide full health coverage and Head Start's comprehensive preschool services for all the children in America who need it—the 9.2 million children without health insurance and 1.8 million who need Head Start but do not receive it, even though they are eligible.

Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman said such greed is shameful in the face of the unmet needs of America's poor children, noting that the Administration and Congress have made budget choices that starve and freeze children's protections while heaping more money on millionaires.

"It is a question of our priorities: a few millionaires or millions of children without health coverage," said Edelman. "We must reject billions in giveaways to the rich masquerading as economic stimulus. For the cost of the massive new tax breaks, we could provide health insurance for all our children and provide Head Start to every eligible child who needs it to succeed in school."

The Senate Finance Committee's tax cut bill provides over $64,000 to the average millionaire and $233 to the average middle-income American, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

The Children's Defense Fund last month found that the number of Black children living in extreme poverty is at its highest level in 23 years and earlier this year reported that long-term unemployment is spreading fastest in families with young children. The Bush Administration claims its plan to dismantle, eliminate, cut and freeze essential protections for children to pay for massive new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans will spur the economy. Ten Nobel Prize winning economists noted that Bush Administration's tax plan “is not the answer” to the recent surge in joblessness.

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE TAX CUT TRADE-OFFS STATE-BY-STATE ANALYSIS

• Cost of SFC tax bill, as amended May 8: $46 billion in FY03 or $97 billion in FY04
• Cost of insuring all children in 2003: $13 billion
• Cost of Head Start for all children ages 0-5: $25 billion

STATE FINDINGS:

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The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby, or speak for themselves. We pay particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities. CDF educates the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventive investment before they get sick, into trouble, drop out of school, or suffer family breakdown. CDF began in 1973 and is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations. We have never taken government funds.