Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to keep privatization out of the American Jobs Plan, pass a Wealth Tax, make the Child Tax Credit expansion permanent, enact paid family/medical leave, and make Washington, D.C. our 51st state. Use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) to find your Congressfolk's phone numbers, or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs.
On the occasion of David Dayen at The American Prospect informing us that a central feature of the "bipartisan" infrastructure bill is the selling off of public services to private corporations in order to build new public services, this would be a good time to call your Congressfolk and tell them no privatization in the American Jobs Plan. When you sell off public works, you get money one time; when you hold on to public works, you get money, in the form of taxes, for as long as you can shepherd them properly. And nobody's still clinging to the notion that the private sector can do public works better, right? I mean, the opposite happens, like, all the time (as Mr. Dayen documents in his article). And once something's private, the people don't own it anymore.
In a related note, Demand Progress helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass a Wealth Tax. We all just witnessed the ProPublica report detailing how little the very richest Americans pay in taxes -- and the Republican response was to say whoever leaked that information to reporters ought to go to jail! That sure is burying the lede! Most of us work a job and get a paycheck, but the very richest individuals don't have to work very hard -- they just let the money they already have do the "work"! But if they have absurd amounts of money, they can buy laws and politicians at will -- and they have! This is why we need to enact a Wealth Tax, and the Wealth Taxes proposed so far raise a lot of money without destroying any estates. Hard to believe, Harry, that anyone would seriously propose selling off public assets to fund new public assets instead of taxing the rich.
In yet another related note, both Americans for Tax Fairness and the Coalition on Human Needs help you tell your Congressfolk to make that Child Tax Credit (or CTC) expansion permanent. Lots of good American working families will be getting the first of their monthly $250 or $300 checks on July 15, and they're going to like it, even if Republicans don't. Even if Congress (foolishly!) let those expanded checks be annual after that, as they're supposed to be in 2022, good Americans with children will continue to reap the benefits of having more breathing space -- when you can meet the bills, you can be better parents. And, you know, it's hard to believe, Harry, that anyone would seriously consider ending these expanded benefits instead of taxing the rich.
Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to enact paid family/medical leave for all Americans. We're about the only civilized nation that doesn't have it as a matter of course, and a mere 21% of American workers get paid family/medical leave via their employers, so we've got to fix that. Just so happens that President Biden's American Families Plan would include paid/family medical leave, but we'd do well for ourselves to tell Congress we want paid family/medical leave in advance. You hear how many Republicans talk about how their constituents are talking to them about the 2020 election? Wouldn't it be nice if they'd talk about how their constituents are talking to them about paid family/medical leave? Yes, it would. And we should help them do that.
Finally, People for the American Way helps you tell your Senators to pass S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which would make Washington, D.C. our 51st state. Because they deserve it! They have more residents than either Vermont or Wyoming and almost as many residents as Alaska and North Dakota, but nobody claims that those four states shouldn't be states. But at present, D.C. has one non-voting member of the U.S. House, and must submit to rule by our federal government -- and can I say that didn't help them very much on January 6? If D.C. had their own National Guard, for example, they could have responded to that uprising a lot more quickly than Donald Trump did. I mean, we do still value self-reliance and self-determination, right? Or do we only do that with areas that aren't majority-Black? I mean, I'd rather think better of my opponents, but they make it so hard.
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