Greenstein Statement on Tax Cut-Unemployment Insurance Agreement

The Center’s executive director, Robert Greenstein, has issued a statement on the deal announced yesterday between President Obama and Republican leaders:

The deal between President Obama and Republican leaders on tax cuts and unemployment insurance has two substantial positive aspects:  its surprisingly strong protections for low- and middle-income working families and its stronger-than-expected boost for the economy and jobs.  But it also has two deeply disturbing negative features:  not only the extension of the high-end income-tax cuts, but also an egregious estate-tax giveaway that Senator Jon Kyl demanded for the estates of the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans who die.

Congress should approve this package — its rejection will likely lead to a more problematic package that does less for middle- and low-income workers and less for the economy.  Then, in 2012, when the economy should be stronger, the President should make clear he will veto any legislation to extend either the high-end tax cuts or the weakening of the estate tax beyond the estate-tax parameters that were in place in 2009, and he should take that case to the country.

Read the rest of this statement here.