By now, you know the drill -- politicians blame taxes for your struggle to make ends meet, and then, once you put them in power, they go and cut taxes for their big donors and not so much for you. In fact, they're likely to raise the taxes that hurt you the most, like sales taxes, once their big donor tax cuts reduce government revenues and thus cripple the government services upon which we all rely. But "liberal" media cynicism aside, it doesn't have to be that way, and short of the campaign finance reform that would cut off the lifeflow of big donor money to policymakers, we still have a voice, and we still have representatives that are supposed to, you know, represent. Hence Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk why tax breaks that really support working families work for you. You know that things like the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit do help you make ends meet. And you know that the benefit a corporation gets from stashing billions of dollars offshore or depreciating an executive jet over a period of years doesn't ever trickle down to you -- but, sadly, you also know that too many Congressfolk try to convince you that their pet corporate welfare handouts are really "tax breaks for working families." Always remember: you're the job creators in this economy.
Meanwhile, Congress has, at times, seemed enthusiastic about enacting patent reform that would actually enable innovation in America, but then they seem to lose that enthusiasm. I doubt it's because we haven't been consistent enough in our advocacy -- I'll bet Congressfolks' big donors make them afraid of what would happen to them if they tried to keep "patent trolls" from patenting everything they can think of willy-nilly. These patent trolls aren't even trying to win lawsuits -- they're just trying to discourage you from marketing some innovative new product or process, because the lawsuits would be too expensive to fight. Would it be uncivil to call opponents of patent reform objectively pro-frivolous lawsuit? The tort "reform" crowd always cries about class-action lawsuits, after all, but they're quite mute about patent trolls. Still, S. 2733, the VENUE Act, would force plaintiffs to file patent lawsuits in the judicial districts where the defendants work and/or committed the alleged infringement, instead of shopping around for a favorable district that will give them whatever they want -- but Judiciary Chair Charles Grassley (R-IA) seems unwilling to move the bill forward. So the Electronic Frontier Foundation helps you urge Sen. Grassley, via Twitter, to move the VENUE Act for a vote. (If you don't use Twitter, you can also find his contact info using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page.)
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