Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations, expand Social Security, enact paid family/medical leave, protect us from "forever chemicals," and pass the Drug Policy Reform Act. 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.
Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations in the budget reconciliation bill. You've heard that lobbyists have gutted the tax-raising provisions in the bill? We might have something to say about that! But only if we, you know, actually say something. I mentioned yesterday that I think Democrats are trying to destroy the bill to keep us all in the perverse hostage situation we've long been in, where Democrats do nothing with their power, then Republicans take over, then Democrats try to cleave us to them by saying "we're not ogres like them!" You can tell your Congressfolk you're on to that plan, and if your Congressperson is on the Gottheimer/Cuellar axis, just remind them that their corporate paymasters will desert them for a Republican at the first opportunity.
This month marks the 86th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act, Social Security Works helps you tell your Congressfolk to expand Social Security. You've heard that Social Security will stop paying full benefits by 2037? I'm old enough to remember when that date was supposed to be 2016! So, yeah, it's a load of rubbish -- these hysterical projections never take economic growth into account, for example, when even evil politicians try to grow our economy! -- and we should change the conversation about Social Security from ZOMG IT WON'TZ BE THEREZ!!!! to "if we start taxing income over $142,800, we can strengthen benefits for everyone." People generally prefer optimism to pessimism, in my experience, so we might as well respect human nature in our persuasive efforts.
Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to enact paid/family medical leave in America. We're about the only "wealthy" country that doesn't have it, and that's nothing to shout WE'RE NUMBER ONE! about, so let's fix it. And let's not brook any stupidity from "moderate" Democrats that we "just can't pay for it." Why, Joe Biden's a moderate himself, and he'd pay for it by taxing corporations more and taxing rich people more! Of course, the Manchin/Sinema/Gottheimer/Cuellar axis will mumble their excuses at that, so let's just say this: Sen. Gillibrand's paid family medical/leave bill (S. 337, from the 115th Congress) would have paid for it with a payroll tax of one-fifth of one percent, which, for someone making $50,000 annually, would work out to about $8.50 a month. $8.50! So no HOW WILL WE PAYZ FOR TEH THINGZ!!!!! It's damn stupid.
Penn PIRG helps you tell your Senators to pass H.R. 2467, the PFAS Action Act. They won't be as unwilling as you'd think -- even the most right-wing Senators get regular correspondence on the effect of these "forever chemicals" on soldiers' health, since soldiers use, like, a lot of PFAS chemicals in their work -- but you never know when some right-wing Senator will hold popular legislation hostage to, I don't know, forced ivermectin injections for children (gosh, I wish that sounded a lot less likely!), so it's always best to get out ahead of it and communicate your will. We don't need cancer-causing "forever chemicals" in damn near everything we use. And if the big corporations who make the stuff don't like it, just tell them to find another way! This is America, the can-do country!
Finally, the Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 4020, the Drug Policy Reform Act. The Drug Policy Reform Act would start getting us on the long-overdue path to treatment of drug addiction rather than criminalization -- and think about it: how does putting someone in jail for being addicted really help them? The bill would end criminalization of drug possession (though not drug dealing, you'll notice), start expunging and sealing drug convictions, eliminate "collateral consequences" of drug possession offenses (like losing your right to vote!), and start funding treatment programs. You know who'll really, really hate this bill? Private prison corporations, which feast on drug offenders. But they don't get all the say around here.
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