FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Joseph Rendeiro
jrendeiro@nclr.org
(202) 776-1566
Schoolchildren surround Senator Max Baucus (D–MT), a member of the bipartisan conference committee charged with extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, to urge him to defend the Child Tax Credit in the negotiations. For additional pictures, please click here.
Washington—On Thursday, February 9, children from CASA de Maryland, the Latin American Montessori Bilingual Public Charter School, and Mary’s Center traveled to Capitol Hill to visit a number of senators who will decide the fate of the Child Tax Credit. In order to pay for an extension of the payroll tax cut, Congress is currently debating eliminating access to the Child Tax Credit for taxpayers who use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN), the overwhelming majority of whom are Latino. The children delivered to committee members a number of drawings illustrating what this money means for their families.
“The typical family who would be affected by this cut earns only $21,000 a year and would see their taxes go up by 8 percent, resulting in a loss of $1,800 in take-home pay,” said Leticia Miranda, Senior Policy Advisor of the Economic and Employment Policy Project at NCLR (National Council of La Raza). “This is money that parents need to keep food on the table and electricity and water running.”
NCLR worked with the First Focus Campaign for Children to coordinate yesterday’s event, during which the children visited the offices of senators currently debating the tax plan.
“Any restriction to the Child Tax Credit would hurt kids and threaten to drive up child poverty,” said Wendy Cervantes, Vice President of Immigration and Child Rights at the First Focus Campaign for Children. “Our children are counting on our nation’s leaders to make decisions on their behalf, and eliminating access to this important credit for any child is simply bad policy. We urge Congress to listen to the voices of children and make the right choice.”
For more information on the Child Tax Credit, please review the NCLR fact sheet.
NCLR—the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States—works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. For more information on NCLR, please visit www.nclr.org or follow along on Facebook and Twitter.
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