BIPARTISAN BUDGET AGREEMENT: A GOOD FIRST STEP FOR THE COUNTRY AND THE ECONOMY, BUT MISSED OPPORTUNITIES REMAIN
Fair Share welcomes end to harmful sequester cuts, but calls on Congress to close corporate tax loopholes and extend help for jobless workers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 11, 2013, David Elliot 202-607-7036
Washington, D.C. – Fair Share today praised the proposed bipartisan budget agreement, noting the two-year spending plan takes a step to stop harmful job loss, lessens debilitating cuts to education and other key programs and allows the economy to grow.
However, Fair Share said legislators must do better, particularly for federal employees and for the more than one million Americans who will see their jobless benefits end right in the middle of the holiday season.
“This bipartisan compromise represents progress,” said Sean Garren, Fair Share legislative director. “It lessens across-the-board spending cuts that hurt kids, parents, seniors and middle-class families and put a drag on our economy. Unfortunately, it also threatens federal employees’ retirement security while failing to close even one wasteful corporate tax loophole. By closing corporate tax loopholes, such as off-shore tax havens, we could recoup more than $70 billion a year. That’s money we could use to help jobless workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. And it’s money we could use to invest further in kids, including jump-starting the President’s early childhood education initiative and ending harmful cuts to food aid programs.”
Nonetheless, Garren praised congressional leaders for – thus far at least – avoiding the partisanship and acrimony that has accompanied budget talks in recent years. “A two-year budget agreement is certainly a step forward,” he said. “Now it is time to focus on finding new ways to grow our economy, strengthen our middle class and ensure that every American has a fair shot in life and an opportunity to succeed.”
Fair Share stands for an America where everyone gets their fair share, does their fair share, and pays their fair share; and where everyone plays by the same rules. Find out more at www.fairshareonline.org