If you've missed previous opportunities to tell our government that a COVID-19 vaccine should be available to anyone regardless of how well-off they are financially, then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. Specifically, you'll tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 7296, the Make Medication Affordable by Preventing Pandemic Price Gouging Act, and H.R. 7288, the Taxpayer Research and Coronavirus Knowledge Act, which would, taken together, prevent big pharma corporations from charging you an arm and a leg so you can get a COVID-19 vaccine. This ain't Big Gummint running roughshod over your rights, this is our government protecting our investments -- our government spent most of the money ever spent on coronavirus research before the pandemic, and our taxpayer money has gone into almost all of the more promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates, so don't we get some say over whether we get gouged or not? This Administration pretends we don't, but we know better.
Meanwhile, Daily Kos helps you tell big corporations to stop funding the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. They call the Amazon "the lungs of the world," thanks to its unparalleled ability to contain carbon emissions and produce oxygen, but the Brazilian government -- led by Jair Bolsonaro, one of our more disgusting Glorious Elites and as a result a man our President obviously aspires to be more like -- has been encouraging developers to set large swaths of it on fire. Of course, American corporations are hip-deep in all of that, but that means we're hip-deep in all of that, too, because where would American corporations be without our consumer dollars? Well, looks like we have a lot of power to change things here, too -- even in the Amazon/Facebook era, our choices aren't "spend money with big corporations or don't buy stuff at all." And in the Amazon/Facebook era, the Big Stick of Bad PR packs a big hurt. But only if we wield it.
Finally, the House Judiciary Committee has lately passed H.R. 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (or MORE) Act, and that means it can get a full House vote next month. The MORE Act would legalize pot by removing it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, and tax its sale and using that money to help communities hit hardest by our now half-century-long obsession with putting down communities of color under the guise of being "tough on crime." I want those communities to recover, and would happily invest my tax dollars for that purpose, but I'm not thrilled with the proposed 5% sales tax -- it'll hit working families harder, and I would rather tax the profits of the entity making and/or selling the pot, like we do with everything else. Still, as the Libertarians will tell you, a lot of racist policing will end once marijuana is legal. Hence Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your House Reps to pass the MORE Act, with objections like the one I've noted above, if you like.
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