The Signing of the Bush Tax Cuts Isn't an Anniversary for Women to Celebrate

Ten years ago this week, on June 7, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the first of several tax cuts that turned budget surpluses into deficits and exacerbated the trend of widening income inequality. In December 2010, Congress extended the tax cuts through the end of 2012. Republican leaders want to make them permanent – and cut taxes even further for the very wealthy and corporations, while letting recent improvements in the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit expire.

That would be expensive, irresponsible, and unfair – especially to women.

Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would almost double the federal budget deficit. From 2001 through 2010, the Bush tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt, nearly half the total debt accrued during this period. Extending them would cost about $4.6 trillion over the next ten years.  

The benefits of an extension would disproportionately go to the very wealthiest Americans. Almost half would go to the richest five percent of taxpayers. The richest one percent would receive an average tax cut of over $68,000 in 2013, but the poorest 60 percent would get a cut of less than $500.

Some families would get nothing at all. Extending the Bush tax cuts would leave 30 percent of single mothers behind. And letting recent improvements in the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit expire would cost millions of struggling families billions in tax credits.

There aren’t a lot of single mothers in the top tax bracket; they’re overrepresented at the lower end of the income scale, where they’re not seeing much of a recovery. Single mothers saw their unemployment rate rise from 11.7 percent in April of this year to 12.7 percent in May. That rate is even higher than the 12.3 percent average annual rate single mothers faced in 2010.

The problem with the Bush tax cuts isn’t just that they leave behind women and families who need help the most. Some lawmakers are using deficits caused in large part by the Bush tax cuts as justification for slashing programs that millions of women and families depend on, including child care, Head Start, K-12 education, much of the Pell grants program, job training, housing and energy assistance, family planning and other women’s health services, and services for vulnerable children and the elderly. But massive deficits aren’t stopping them from proposing trillions of dollars in additional tax breaks for millionaires.

Let’s make the economy work for women and their families. Millionaires seem to be doing alright.