Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations to pay for the Build Back Better Act, invest in our care economy, fund paid family/medical leave, let Medicare negotiate drug prices, expand Medicare, expand our fight against climate change, and permanently expand the Child Tax Credit. 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.
Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Congressfolk to raise the full $3.5 trillion for the Build Back Better Act by raising taxes on the rich and on corporations. Americans for Tax Fairness also helps you tell your Congressfolk to include the Billionaire's Income Tax in the Build Back Better Act and assess a 2% tax on corporate stock buybacks. Yeah, I know, Kyrsten Sinema said no, but she has completely soiled her reputation -- no, independents aren't going to see her as all tough and mavericky after she defied public opinion (not "the special interests"!) time after time. But she ain't the boss of us, and even though she has assured this won't go our way this time, our duty is to communicate our will until they do our will.
Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to invest in the care economy in the Build Back Better Act. Some Democratic Senators seem to care more about the total price of the package than what it does, but investing in the care economy is no less important than anything else, given that we're all going to need care one day, whether for ourselves or for our loved ones. It does appear that the Build Back Better Act would subsidize day care so as to limit spending on day care to 7% of one's income (at least up to a certain salary, which I'm sure was Joe Manchin's idea), and since day care is yet another one of those things everyone charges an arm and a leg for because working families need it, that would be a vast improvement, and communicating our will about the care economy should at least get that much done. This time.
Moms Rising also helps you tell your Congressfolk to include paid family/medical leave in the Build Back Better Act. Originally President Biden wanted 13 weeks of paid family/medical leave in the Build Back Better Act (currently Americans get 13 weeks of unpaid leave); now it looks like we'll get four. Four is fewer than most other civilized nations (and some not-so-civilized ones!), but four is also more than zero, which is where we are now. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for more! Why, it doesn't even mean we should shut up now! We are not hostages to Democratic "moderates," no matter how much other Democrats give themselves over as hostages to Democratic "moderates." And they're really supposed to negotiate with us. They didn't do that. So we need to ensure they do that from now on.
Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to make large investments in climate change action. That would include investing in solar and wind power, and also a methane emissions tax, which would slash carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry. Yeah, Joe Manchin put the kibosh on big climate change action because West Virginia is a coal state, but do we really think good West Virginians are that emotionally-invested in coal? I think they'd throw coal overboard in a minute! Of course, Joe Manchin is, ah, personally invested in keeping coal around, and that's just one reason he'll lose re-election by 20 points in 2024 no matter what he thinks. Still and all, communicate your will now, and we can win the future.
Drug Prices Are Too High, Daily Kos, and Penn PIRG all help you demand that your Congressfolk put Medicare drug price negotiation in the Build Back Better Act, while Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to expand Medicare services for seniors in the Build Back Better Act. Kyrsten Sinema (again) and Bob Menendez killed Medicare drug price negotiation this round, but 80% of Americans want it, so we ought to have it, and we certainly ought to keep fighting for it until we do have it. And Democratic "moderates" have just about succeeded in gutting the expanding-Medicare plank, so we have to tell our Congressfolk that $800 vouchers for dental care (and $0 for vision care, apparently) ain't enough for our seniors.
Finally, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Moms Rising, and the Juggernaut Project all help you tell your Congressfolk to make the Child Tax Credit expansion permanent in the Build Back Better Act. Again, because of Mr. Means Tester, Joe Manchin, the Build Back Better Act will only extend the Child Tax Credit expansion for a year, but again, $250 and $300 checks in your bank accounts every month is actually quite popular with working families, who sure could use all the breathing room they can get. You'll want to demand that they don't cap CTC expansion eligibility at $60,000 annually -- another brilliant Joe Manchin idea! -- because that ain't much. Should we expect Millionaire Joe to understand that? Doesn't matter! We should expect him to listen to his constituents who make him understand that.
In case I haven't been obvious enough about it: the fact that the Build Back Better Act will not meet our expectations doesn't mean we should stop fighting for the things we wanted to have in it. Joe Biden will, God willing, have at least another three years in office, and though the punditoids are all saying Republicans will take back the House and maybe the Senate too in 2022, we have something to say about that. No one should ever vote for a Republican again, for any office -- particularly after the January 6 near-coup! -- and we should also demand far better Democrats than party leadership would want to give us. And more than that, whenever they say it's hopeless, we should act like they're disrespecting us -- not least because they are. They want us to throw up our hands and treat politics like a big sporting event. Don't ever do that. This is our America -- but only if we speak out.
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