Long story short: tell your Senators to fight climate change, 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.
Daily Kos helps you tell your Senators to ensure the Build Back Better Act makes historic investments in fighting climate change. It's simple: if we don't fight climate change, we won't have a planet to live on. Why, even those who live in gated communities won't have a planet to live on! And certainly don't believe Republican hype that President Biden's climate change agenda is driving up gas prices. Gas ain't the only energy in the world, after all, and big corporations are driving up gas prices because they can. And the Build Back Better Act ain't even passed yet! Yikes, they think we're all so stupid. And "I pretended everyone was stupid so I could gaslight people into doing things they didn't want to do" is a hell of a thing to take to the Pearly Gates.
Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Senators to raise taxes on the rich and on corporations. As I said last week, Sen. Sinema complained about the price tag of the Build Back Better Act, but then crippled the bill's ability to pay for itself! And she could still stamp her feet at the 15% corporate minimum tax and the 5% and 8% surtaxes on income over $10 million and $25 million respectively; tall we can do is keep communicating our will to our Senators until they do it. It has an effect -- Sen. Sinema's office, I've heard, ain't anyone's favorite place to work partly because of all the good Arizonans giving her what-for about what she's doing. If we keep that up, we'll have more of an effect.
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. Too many Democrats act like doing something for their bosses, the American people, will result in massive losses in the midterms, but does that make sense to you? Sure seems like doing something for the people makes them want to keep you in office! And just as expanding the Child Tax Credit seems like an easy thing to run on -- and not just because of all those $250 and $300 checks arriving in working families' bank accounts! -- cutting child care costs in half, as the Build Back Better Act would do, should also be an easy thing to run on! If Democrats are going to pretend doing this stuff is hard, then of course they deserve to lose. But let's make it hard for them to pretend.
Both Moms Rising and Daily Kos help you tell your Senators to include paid family/medical leave in the Build Back Better Act. Paid family/medical leave is yet another popular initiative that has thus far fallen victim to One Holdout Democrat, this time Joe Manchin, who apparently prefers working with Republicans and paying for it with payroll tax hikes. That won't pass President Biden's no-tax-hikes-on-folks-making-less-than-$400,000 demand, and it also won't pass a Senate with more than 39 Republicans in it, like this one. Because they block everything! But how did we even get paid/family medical leave in the bill to begin with? Through our activism. And how did we get our House to put it back in the bill after Sen. Manchin wanted it out? Through our activism. It's the only thing that works, so we have to keep doing it.
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. And who demanded the exclusion of Medicare drug price negotiation from the Build Back Better Act? Kyrsten Sinema, of course, who now says she thinks the bill won't get done until after Christmas! As if she isn't one of the two main reasons this bill isn't done now! Yikes, she's worse than a cartoon supervillain. And they usually don't do their evil in plain sight. Hell, even Joe Manchin will tell you he'd prefer to finish it up next year; he doesn't act like it's some law of physics preventing it from getting done. But folks like Kyrsten Sinema are the reason we have to keep doing what we do.
Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell your Senators to expand Medicare services for seniors in the Build Back Better Act. Joe Manchin has expressed his "reservations" about this as well, due to Medicare "insolvency" or something, and that's why Democrats have been either the minority party or a timid majority party for the last 40-plus years -- like a football team going into the Prevent defense with two minutes left and a five-point lead, Democrats don't play to win, they play not to lose. Instead of worrying about TOO MUCHZ OFZ TEH SPENDINGZ!!!!, they ought to focus on doing the most good for the most Americans. If they did that, good Americans would actually be excited about voting for them! And getting dental/vision/hearing care for seniors sure would be "doing the most good."
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