Washington, DC – [Raul Yzaguirre, President of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation�s largest Latino civil rights organization, expressed outrage after the President signed massive tax cuts into law which leave out many working families. He issued the following statement:]

This week, the President signed into law H.R. 2, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, a $350 billion tax cut package. While the Administration was touting this measure as an economic stimulus that will create jobs and benefit a majority of working families, House and Senate tax writers were making room for large cuts for wealthy investors at the expense of these families earning just above the minimum wage.

Specifically, at the 11th hour, Congressional negotiators excluded families earning between $10,500 and $26,625 from claiming the child tax credit (CTC) increase, effectively leaving out roughly 1.6 million, or 30%, of eligible Latino families who might have otherwise benefited from this increase. The CTC has been an instrumental tool for Hispanic working-poor families who are deeply affected by taxes and need assistance to offset the tax burden on their families.

What is more appalling is that Congressional leaders are arguing that it was necessary to exclude these working families from the tax cuts in order to pay for the tax rate reduction on dividend income, which affects only the 7% of Hispanic families who own stock. Far too many Latinos work for low wages, and a vast majority does not own stock or participate in any employer-sponsored pension plans, including those that rely on dividend income. Administration officials have argued that this tax cut is designed for the �little guy.� Hispanic Americans can only wonder who that is, since their families are largely left out of this tax package.

As in the past, tax relief comes in the form of top-heavy tax cuts geared to improving the economic well-being of the most affluent, rather than providing an immediate stimulus to benefit the majority of Americans. NCLR has maintained throughout that these tax cuts not only impose grave financial risks on the federal government and threaten future funding of key domestic priorities, but will mostly benefit wealthy Americans leaving out a majority of Latino households.

Instead of just cutting taxes for the wealthy, Congress and the Administration should be working to provide meaningful tax relief for working families. It appears, however, that some leaders have little interest in helping Latino taxpayers or their families weather the economic downturn. We shall see if Latino voters treat these policy-makers with the same indifference.

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