Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to pass the full Build Better Act, raise taxes on the rich and on corporations, enable Medicare to negotiate drug prices, tell Congress to lower drug prices for everyone, and end corporate welfare for fossil fuel corporations. 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 and/or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs.
With Build Back Better Act text coming within a day or two, now would be a good time to call your Congressfolk and tell them to pass the full bill, with all $3.5 trillion of planned spending. That means (among other things!) expanding Medicare and expanding home- and community-based care services, since these are the two initiatives Congress will most likely drop from the bill. But wait! What about what Joe Manchin wants? Everybody asks that, but not enough of us ask, "what about what we want?" I find it hard to believe that the American people would object to expanding Medicare, since clear majorities in poll after poll find that Americans want everyone on Medicare. I also find it hard to believe that the American people would object to spending on the home- and community-based care that we're all going to need sooner or later. But in order to prove that, we have to speak out.
Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Congressfolk to raise all $3.5 trillion for the Build Back Better Act from higher taxes on the rich and on corporations. But wait! What about the Unspeakable Nine in the House Democratic caucus? Again, the correct question is "what about what we want?" The American people have, again, demonstrated in poll after poll that we want to tax the rich and corporations a lot harder than we're currently doing; we have demonstrated this, in poll after poll, despite being relentless propagandized by the politicians and our "liberal" media about the "harm" higher taxes on the rich and corporations would do. And again, we have to speak out in order to prove it -- particularly since the winged monkeys of the right are certainly speaking out.
Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Congressfolk to close the "stepped-up basis" loophole which enables the rich to avoid taxes on investments. The rich have gamed the system well enough that they never have to sell an investment to get cash -- they can just go get a loan using their investment as collateral for that loan, sheltering their investment from taxation. Don't believe the hype about closing this loophole affecting family farms and small businesses, because the Biden proposal specifically exempts these businesses, as long as the owners hold onto them. "Stepped-up basis" sounds pretty inside baseball, I know, but that doesn't mean your will to close it should count less than the will of some PR hack who makes a living confusing everyone. Your will is your will, and your representatives need to respect that.
Public Citizen still helps you tell your Congressfolk to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. "Moderate" Democrats stand ready to proclaim that we "can't afford" that, but if Medicare can negotiate drug prices, it will save the taxpayer money. As literally any sentient life form would tell you! Let alone the right-wingers at the Mercatus Center, who told us in 2018 (not that they, ah, foregrounded this information) that Medicare drug price negotiation would save us $84 billion annually, meaning $840 billion over 10 years, meaning about one-fourth of the total price of the Build Back Better Act. Does that mean we should still raise all that money from the rich and from corporations? Of course we should! But we should also enact policy that would make Medicare run better for less money. And if the big pharma corporations don't like it, well, again, we need to stop asking about them, and we need to start asking about us.
Drug Prices Are Too High helps you tell your Congressfolk to lower drug prices for everyone in America. Medicare drug price negotiation would do wonders for the drug prices our seniors pay, but we all deserve lower drug prices. Seriously, should we merely tolerate corporations that charge a thousand dollars monthly for life-preserving insulin just because they can? Should we tolerate corporations charging $600 for an EpiPen that cost them far less to produce? No, we are civilized people, so we should not tolerate that. And if any of your friends or family tell you that folks should eat better so they don't become diabetic, remember that if any of them become diabetic, they'll assume they worked hard to avoid it whether they really did or not. Pretty much everyone is like that, and civilized people don't assign blame so much as solve problems.
Finally, the Daily Kos Liberation League helps you tell your Congressfolk to end fossil fuel subsidies. If they cost us over $20 billion annually, that's $200 billion over 10 years, or around five percent of the cost of the Build Back Better Act; five percent ain't a lot, but surely every dollar counts, particularly when it's our dollars they're talking about. Fossil fuels hardly need the welfare handouts we give them, not when they monopolize their markets, not when they refuse to embrace renewable energy as any forward-looking entrepreneur ought to do, and certainly not when they make money hand over fist. You've heard them say oil corporations only make seven cents per gallon of gas? Think of all the gas you buy, and multiply that by 300 million Americans, and you'll begin to see that argument is a lot like saying a CEO is underpaid because he only gets $6 every time he draws breath.
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