FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 1, 2013
Contact:
For English-Speaking Media:
Donna De La Cruz, [email protected], (202) 339-9331

GOP Continues to Ignore Needs of Most Americans

(WASHINGTON)—Our country is facing a jobs deficit, with more than 20 million people in need of full-time work and unemployment continuing to hover around 8 percent. The automatic spending cuts that went into effect today will cost another 750,000 jobs, deepening the economic pain that is already disproportionately felt by low-income people and communities of color across the nation.

“Solutions to Congress’s self-made crisis have been blocked by Republican interests in protecting tax breaks and corporate loopholes,” said Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change. “That stubbornness has led to cuts that represent a failure to protect the best interests of most Americans.”

The human toll of these cuts could not be starker:

• 70,000 children will be cut from Head Start while big oil continues to receive special subsidies.
• 10,000 teachers will lose their jobs while Wall Street executives keep their corporate jet loopholes.
• 1.1 million children with special needs won’t receive care while millionaires keep tax breaks that the rest of us don’t get.

“Since the summer of 2011, we have seen $1.7 trillion in cuts and only $620 billion in new revenue. We need to stop the sequester immediately and raise revenue to invest in our people and communities. We need jobs, not more cuts to the programs that help average Americans,” Bhargava said.

###