Schakowsky called for the immediate passage of H.R. 2286, a bill that would provide and increase the child credit for families who make between $10,500 and $26,625 a year.  In last minute negotiations on the recent tax cut legislation, the Republican Congressional leadership denied the increase in the tax credit to 6.5 million  families, including 12 million children. 

“Republican leaders got together with the Administration and decided who was going to be thrown overboard and who would be brought to shore.   And the decision was made to throw children and working families – including military families – overboard and to save the dividend tax cuts for millionaires while restoring the ability of corporations to unpatriotically stash their profits in Bermuda.  Compassion for millionaires and corporate traitors – contempt for low-income children and their parents,”  Schakowsky said.

According to a report by the Committee on Government Reform minority staff, Vice President Dick Cheney – the President’s key tax negotiator – will reap $116,002 a year from the dividend/capital gains provisions in the tax bill.  John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, will get over $332,000 a year.  Donald Rumsfeld will get as much as $604,000 a year. 

“We know who the winners are, and now we know at least some of the losers:  12 million children and working families.  In my state of Illinois, nearly 1 in 4 children – 674,000 children in 378,000 families – were tossed aside so that Cabinet secretaries, billionaires, and corporations like Enron could be protected,” Schakowsky added.

H.R. 2286 would provide greater tax relief to the families of 19 million children. In addition to restoring the child tax credit provision that Republicans dropped in the middle of the night, the bill would make the child tax credit available to 1.7 million more families by providing that those earning $7,500 or more could get the credit. The bill would also accelerate marriage penalty relief for families getting the Earned Income Tax Credit. 
 
Below is Schakowsky’s Congressional Record statement:

Mr. Speaker, This afternoon, I received the following email from one of my constituents:
 
Dear Janice Schakowsky,  Our government should stand for basic fairness and justice.  That’s why I do not understand why families earning between $10,000 and $26,000 per year would be excluded from receiving the $400-per-child tax refund that wealthier families will receive this summer just so millionaires can get bigger tax cuts.
 
As a constituent, I ask you to please amend President Bush’s unfair tax cut plan to include these poor families and their 12 million kids.  To leave the tax cut as it is brings too much shame upon this great nation.
 
My constituent is correct.  This is a shameful moment in our great nation and we should not rest until we undo the tremendous wrong committed by the Republican leadership and the Bush Administration.  This is no time for business as usual.  This is the time to reverse the damage done by the disgusting choices made by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
 
There are those who may tell us that the decision to leave 12 million children in low-income working families on the cutting room floor was just a mistake.  But that would be a lie.  As the Washington Post editorialized yesterday, “Stiffing these children was not a last-minute oversight or the unfortunate result of an unreasonably tight $350 billion ceiling.”  In fact, it was a deliberate, mean-spirited action committed in the name of protecting special interests instead of our nation’s children.  In fact, a House Republican Ways and Means Committee spokesperson confessed that, “Adjustments had to be made.”  
 
Let us be clear about what happened.  Behind closed doors, Republican leaders got together with the Administration and decided who was going to be thrown overboard and who would be brought to shore.  There were no Democratic members in the room.  There were no children or working families in the room.  And the decision was made to throw children and working families – including military families – overboard and to save the dividend tax cuts for millionaires while restoring the ability of corporations to unpatriotically stash their profits in Bermuda.  Compassion for millionaires and corporate traitors – contempt for low-income children and their parents.
 
As Warren Buffett has said, this is class warfare and my class is winning.  There are other winners besides Warren Buffett.  Not surprisingly, the Bush Cabinet members who worked so hard to sell this tax cut/job killing bill are also winners.  According to a report just completed by the Committee on Government Reform minority staff, Vice President Dick Cheney – the President’s key tax negotiator – will reap $116,002 a year from the dividend/capital gains provisions in this bill.  John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, will get over $332,000 a year.  Donald Rumsfeld, who gave Vice President Cheney’s former company Halliburton a multimillion dollar sweetheart contract -- wins big, too – as much as $604,000 a year.  No wonder they all worked so hard to sell such a defective product.
 
We know who the winners are, and now we know at least some of the losers:  12 million children and working families.  In my state of Illinois, nearly 1 in 4 children – 674,000 children in 378,000 families – were tossed aside so that Cabinet secretaries, billionaires, and corporations like Enron could be protected.
 
We weren’t given time to read the Republican tax cut/job killing bill before the vote – and I don’t blame my colleagues for trying to push their bill through before we and the American public could learn what it included.  I’d be ashamed, too, if I decided to give Cabinet members, wealthy members of Congress and rich campaign contributors life jackets rather than women and children.  
 
No wonder the members on my side of the aisle weren’t given an opportunity to offer even one single amendment.  What if we had learned the truth and tried to correct it?  
 
Now we have learned the truth and it is time to right an incredible wrong.  Bob Herbert labeled this as a “quintessential example of what the Bush administration and its legislative cronies are about….The fat cats will get their tax cuts.  But in the new American plutocracy, there won’t even be crumbs left over for the working folks at the bottom of the pyramid to scramble after.”  
 
Now the actions of the Bush administrators and Republican tax decision makers are out in the open.  And now it is our responsibility to act by passing H.R. 2286, Rangel/DeLauro.  Children and working families should our first priority – not tossed out, given crumbs, or thrown overboard.  We must make the commitment to act this month.