Heinrich Urges Vote to Make Middle-Class Tax Cuts Permanent

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Office of the Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
H-232 Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
During the past decade, President Bush rammed through Congress a multi-billion dollar giveaway for
the wealthiest Americans on the backs of our nation's middle-class. In the process, the aforementioned
Bush tax cuts eviscerated an unprecedented budget surplus and weakened our nation's fiscal health.
As the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, we respectfully urge you to bring to the floor, before Congress
adjourns in October, a vote on President Obama's recently proposed tax plan: permanent tax cuts for
the middle-class while allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans to
expire, using any additional revenue to close our budget deficit.
We must show the American people that our Democratic Majority stands for them - people who have
worked hard, played by the rules and depend on these tax breaks to make ends meet. We also need to
get serious about cutting our budget deficit by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.
Some have argued that the Bush tax cuts help to stimulate the economy or that allowing these cuts to
expire would hurt our nation's small businesses. This is flat out wrong. According to a recent report
by the Center for American Progress, the economy boasted 132 million jobs in June 200 I, the month
that the first of the Bush tax cuts was signed into law. By June 2004, there were just 131.4 million jobs
a decrease of 600,000 jobs. Furthermore, a recent report from the Tax Policy Center states that,
"Roughly 97 percent of small businesses would not be affected at all by increases in the top two tax
rates."
Extending the Bush tax cuts will result in an $830 billion giveaway for the nation's wealthiest
Americans, significantly increasing government debt, the interest on which will be paid by our nation's
middle-class for years to come. This astronomical sum could instead be used to close our budget
deficit.
It is critical that we pass the Obama middle-class tax cuts not provide an even greater lift for the
wealthiest Americans who don't need it.

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