Press Releases

WASHINGTON - Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman today urged the House of Representatives and the Bush Administration to assure the immediate extension of the child tax credit to 12 million children in hard-working civilian and military families unjustly left behind by the tax cut law recently signed by the President. The $82 billion Thomas bill, introduced in the House this week, ties tax credit help for low-income children and their families to additional expensive tax breaks for high-income families.

The new tax cut law left behind families making the minimum wage including one million children living in military families from eligibility for the expanded child tax credit. The new law provides each of America's 190,000 millionaires $93,500 on average. The Senate last week approved a revision of the law that would provide an additional $154 on average per child to 12 million children in hard working low-income families.

STATEMENT OF MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

We do not need an $82 billion bill to correct a $3.5 billion injustice. The unjust, callous last minute act denying urgently needed help to families with incomes between $10,500 and $26,600 while ensuring every millionaire a $93,500 tax break this year was swiftly corrected by the Senate by a vote of 94 - 2 without adding to the deficit. The House should do the same immediately.

Poor children in working families should not be held hostage to more political shenanigans. The Thomas bill pushes expensive new tax cuts for affluent families and risks bogging down and denying immediate help for low-income working people who need to pay their utility bills and put food on the table right now. How can the House of Representatives and the White House continue to compound a profound injustice to poor children by proposing a $82 billion child tax credit bill that would give six times more child tax credit help to higher income families than to low-income families unjustly left behind in the first place?

The White House should assure that the House acts immediately to right the wrong to families unjustly left behind in first place by the administration's massive tax cut law. The Children's Defense Fund urges the House to enact the Senate version of the child tax credit now, so that the families who need help most will get it without further enriching families who need help least.

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Background Information:

• Thomas Bill Holds Help for 12 Million Children Hostage
  (Adobe PDF : 1 page : 99KB)

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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.