Long story short: tell your Senators to get the lead out of our drinking water, raise taxes on the rich and on corporations, invest in the care economy, enact paid family/medical leave, let Medicare negotiate drug prices, and expand Medicare. 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.
Food and Water Watch helps you tell your Senators to ensure that the Build Back Better Act protects our clean water by funding lead pipe removal. As you know, the infrastructure bill President Biden signed begins the work of getting the lead out of our water pipes, but will by no means finish that work, which is why the Build Back Better Act needs to finish that work. I'm reminded, in the wake of Donald Trump whining that Republicans shouldn't have passed that infrastructure bill, that Mr. Trump's own infrastructure plan was to use $150 billion in tax cuts to "attract" $1 trillion in investment -- in exactly the kinds of "infrastructure" that makes money for some boss-man but doesn't actually help anyone. Getting the lead out of our drinking water helps everyone, so let's finish the job on that.
Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Senators to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations. Here I'm reminded that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D?-AZ) made loud noises about the cost of the bill when she originally spoke about it, but drew all her red lines around the parts that would have paid for the bill, like raising tax rates on the wealthy and on corporations! Doing that kind of bait-and-switch does open you up to the charge of being a liar, and in a sane, moral, and decent society, she would be so ashamed of what she's done that she wouldn't run for re-election. Why do I get the sense she's even more immune to shame than many of her colleagues? Anyway, that's why we keep doing what we do.
The National Women's Law Center helps you tell your Senators to ensure that the Build Back Better Act funds the "care economy," i.e., things like child care and home care. Cutting child care costs in half would be, as a famous philosopher once said, a big fucking deal, and I guess it's gratifying that Senators Manchin and Sinema haven't spoken out about any desire they might have to kill it, but I sure hope I haven't summoned a demon by saying that. And again: child care subsidies aren't "communism." Ask anyone who says so what they would do about child care corporations jacking up the cost of child care simply because they can -- that is, because almost all two-parent families have two working parents. Just remember: if they respond by saying "that's a discussion we should have," they're signaling that it's a discussion they're never going to have.
Both Moms Rising and Daily Kos help you tell your Senators to include paid family/medical leave in the Build Back Better Act. Sen. Manchin is the 50th Democratic Senator who opposes this one; he says he'd like to pass something more "bipartisan," and more specifically something that relies more on payroll taxes, but he doesn't really think Mitch McConnell will allow that to happen, does he? And frankly our House's four-week paid family/medical leave plan is better, since it doesn't rely on regressive payroll taxes for funding. (Not incidentally, it also doesn't violate President Biden's requirement that the bill raise zero taxes on folks making less than $400,000 annually.) Now, previous paid family/medical leave bills did rely on payroll taxes, and they weren't onerous, but why do the worse thing if you can do the better thing?
Drug Prices Are Too High, Daily Kos, Penn PIRG, and More Perfect Union all help you demand that your Senators put Medicare drug price negotiation in the Build Back Better Act. This was the other pay-for Kyrsten Sinema drew a red line against: the notion that Medicare could actually save the taxpayer money by negotiating for lower drug prices for American seniors. Seems the only folks who favor higher drug prices for seniors are the big pharma execs and the politicians who take their money. And when big pharma CEOs say that Medicare drug price negotiation will "cripple innovation," just remember that innovation only comes from necessity, not from comfort. Also remember that folks who have all the money don't "innovate" anything except how to get more money.
Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell your Senators to expand Medicare services for seniors in the Build Back Better Act. Joe Manchin doesn't like this, either, and to justify his opposition he mouthed a bunch of word salad about making sure Medicare is solvent first. Maybe he was just trying to avoid saying that he's been collecting a lot of money lately from big Republican donors with whom he previously had no connection. I should say that he and Sen. Sinema have been doing that, of course, and folks who shrug and say money talks really need to ask themselves: should politicians only listen to big donors? Politicians have to listen to their real bosses, their constituents, and most good Americans would have their Senators vote differently on a lot of these matters.
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