Sandra Cook: End the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy

This weekend the Senate will finally be voting on the Bush tax cuts. This should not be a controversial vote for our leaders in the Senate. In fact, this is the first issue of the lame duck session where the public is overwhelming in agreement. A CBS poll this week found that only 26 percent of Americans favor extending the Bush tax cuts for all Americans including those making over $250,000. The rest are like me and support ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and extending them for the other 98% of us.

Like most Americans, I have made sacrifices during this economic downturn. We have all endured severe budget cuts at the federal, state and local level that impact our lives in a variety of ways. If we are spending additional tax dollars at a time like this, we must be sure that it will lead to future economic prosperity. The problem is that extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will not create jobs and future prosperity and will cost $700 billion over the next ten years. It will simply give the rich an extra tax cut they do not need. In the nine years of the Bush tax cuts, the U.S. has had the worst rate of job creation since the government began keeping records.

This weekend, I hope that Sens. Warner and Webb will cast a vote for jobs by ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and extending them for the “rest of us.”

Sandra Cook is the chair of the Charlottesville-based Virginia Organizing Project.