Students and community leaders met on Wednesday in Lansing to protest President Bush’s proposed tax cuts.
Five community leaders, including Michigan State AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney and Flint-based United Auto Workers regional director Cal Rapson, urged the crowd of more than 200 people in Lansing’s Reutter Park to write Congress and to stand together against Bush’s proposal.
“Bush’s tax scheme will make millionaires richer, but offer little relief to working families,” Gaffney said. “60 percent of Bush’s tax cut would go to the richest 10 percent, with only 13 percent coming to the bottom 60 percent.”
AFL-CIO is a voluntary federation of America's unions, representing more than 13 million working women and men nationwide.
Although weather was dreary and gray in Lansing’s park, Tim Hughes, legislative director for the Michigan AFL-CIO, said the speakers inspired and informed the audience.
“I think that people there were supportive of the position and premise of the rally,” he said. “They rallied because the tax cuts are going to people who basically don’t need them. These cuts are going to pay off people who have supported Bush.”
The U.S. House passed Bush’s budget proposal with few changes, but the Senate rewrote it and dropped the tax cuts from $1.6 trillion to $1.2 trillion.
Supporters of Bush’s proposal question the motives of the speakers at the rally. They say Bush’s tax plan will benefit every taxpayer in Michigan.
“What it’s going to do is a number of things,” Michigan Republican Party spokesman Sage Eastman said. “Every taxpayer in Michigan will get a tax cut and it’s going to help middle- and low-income families.”
Eastman said the cuts would eliminate a current marriage penalty and increase a child tax credit.
“This is going to put more money into the hands of these middle-class families who face more and more education costs down the road. The Bush budget helps families,” he said.
Adam Szlachetka was one of 10 members of Students for Economic Justice, or SEJ, to attend the rally.
SEJ is an officially registered student group at MSU that rallies against unfair labor conditions.
The members argued that Bush’s tax plan would consume the budget surplus and leave Americans unable to repair schools, add a real prescription-drug benefit to Medicare, strengthen Social Security and improve health care.
Szlachetka, a political economy senior, said he came because he believes Bush’s program cuts are dangerous.
“It’s important that people take an active role in policies that directly affect them,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re going to make a change.”
About 300 people also attended an afternoon rally in Detroit to call for more money to fix decaying schools, offer health care coverage to all children and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
One other rally took place in Saginaw as a part of a national day of protests against the cuts.
