Tell your Members of Congress: Fight for the Democratic HEROES Act, Defeat the Republican HEALS Act
Senator Dianne Feinstein
SF Office: (415) 393-0707
DC Office: (202) 224-3841
LA Office: (310) 914-7300
Fresno Office: (559) 485-7430
San Diego Office: (619) 231-9712
If you can't get through to one office, try another. There is no benefit to calling one office over another. Leaving a voicemail is as good as reaching a live person. Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend.
Senator Kamala Harris
SF Office: (415) 981-9369
DC Office: (202) 224-3553
Sacramento Office: (916) 448-2787
LA Office: (213) 894-5000
San Diego Office: (619) 239-3884
Call the SF office first, but try the other offices if you can’t get through. If you can’t get a live person, leave a voicemail and also send a follow-up email written in your own words. Hate the phone? Resistbot is your friend.
Note: only one of the following two Congresswomen represents you. To find out which one, click here.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
SF Office: (415) 556-4862
DC Office: (202) 225-4965
Email Contact: https://pelosi.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
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Rep. Jackie Speier
San Mateo Office: (650) 342-0300
DC Office: (202) 225-3531
Email Contact: https://speier.house.gov/email-jackie
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
Thank you for standing strong for the HEROES Act and fighting for the emergency relief we all require. Don't cave in to the Republican lies and smears. Hold out for as long as it takes to get a bill that includes essentials like:
Adequate unemployment benefits
National moratorium on evictions/foreclosures
Sufficient funds for hospitals, COVID testing and treatment
Hazard pay and adequate Personal Protective Equipment for essential workers
Funds, requirements, and polices to ensure the integrity of fair and free elections
Protecting and restoring the postal service that delivers our medicine and ballots
Enough aid to state/local governments and Medicaid to keep them afloat
Do not accept Republican poison pills such as:
Liability immunity for businesses that disregard health and safety
Schemes to suspend the payroll taxes that Social Security and Medicare depend on
Additional Pentagon funding for fighter jets, missiles, and other weapons of war
Background
Two and a half months ago, the Democratic House passed the HEROES Act to deal with the pandemic-caused health and economic crises. Though it didn't include everything we wanted, it's a good bill that provided the essentials. But the Republican Senate did nothing. Now extended unemployment benefits have expired – leaving 17 million newly out-of-work people unable to pay their bills. Now the eviction/foreclosure moratorium that kept tens of millions of families from being thrown out into the street has ended.
Republicans recently responded with their HEALS Act which provides yet more tax-breaks and benefits for the wealthy, but does nothing of substance for the vast majority of Americans. Yet Republicans are in disarray. According to McConnell, 15-20 Republican senators will not vote for any new relief bill at all. Which means that no bill can pass the Senate without a significant number of Democratic votes. This gives the Senate Democrats strong negotiating leverage – if they stand firm and fight.
The Republican HEALS Act ~ Are They Crazy?
No, they're not crazy, they're simply ruthlessly, destructively, terminally selfish.
The HEALS Act is the emergency bill being pushed in the Senate by McConnell and his Republican caucus. (The media sometimes refer to it as the Johnson or Johnson-Braun bills or Phase-4 Stimulus.)
Trump and his band of right-wing advisers are trying to insert into the HEALS Act provisions that will destroy Social Security and Medicare by eliminating the share of payroll taxes that employees pay. This would provide a 7.5% income boost for most workers – so it sounds really good. But it would do nothing for the unemployed, while eliminating half of all the money that funds Social Security and Medicare. Both programs would quickly go bankrupt – which for year has been a goal of ideologically-driven Republicans. (As it now stands, the long-term problems with Social Security could easily be fixed by requiring the wealthy 1% to pay the same share payroll tax into the system as we do.)
The Republican HEALS Act:
Slashes extended unemployment befits that 17,000,000 newly unemployed breadwinners rely on for sustenance, shelter, and basic survival due to pandemic shutdowns.
Fails to provide additional hazard pay for essential front-line workers, and only tax-credits rather than up-front money for worker Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Does provide immunity to employers and businesses from any COVID-related financial liability if their workers or customers fall ill. They do that in a disguised way by making it impossible to sue for damages. Their legal language states that in order to sue you must "prove by clear and convincing evidence" … "[that] the actual exposure to corona virus caused..." In other words, you have to conclusively prove that you didn't catch COVID somewhere else, which is impossible because you can't prove a negative.
Fails to provide additional funding for state Medicaid. Provides only a quarter of the federal funds that hospitals need to stay financially afloat and only one-fifth of the testing and treatment funds that HEROES provides.
Fails to extend the eviction/foreclosure moratorium. This failure could lead to tens of millions of families becoming homeless on our streets. Evictions/foreclosures then open up their former apartments for rent-increases and their homes for real estate industry speculative house-flipping and gentrification.
Provides corporate tax-cuts totaling $203 billion. For example, by doubling the write-off for business entertainment (those “three-martini lunches”).
Fails to provide money to state and local governments to keep them from pandemic-caused bankruptcy. (Except, however, for a small amount of aid to schools who agree to open for in-person attendance.)
Provides $29.4 billion to the Pentagon (in addition to the already bloated defense budget) for more F-35 fighters, Apache attack copters, and THAAD missiles to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally.”
Fails to provide additional funds or policies to protect election integrity and ensure a fair and free election and count in November.
Provides a personal payoff to Trump by appropriating an unnecessary $1.75 billion for renovating the FBI headquarters a block from the Trump Hotel so that the location won't be sold to a developer who might build a competing hotel.
References
The Gulf Between Republicans and Democrats on Coronavirus Aid, in 9 Charts, NY Times, 7/30/20
The GOP HEALS Act fails to heal people harmed by the coronavirus, will cost millions of jobs, and protects bad employers, EPI, 7/28/20
Conservatives urge Trump to take unilateral action to suspend payroll tax collection, TheHill, 8/3/20
HEROES Act versus the HEALS Act flyer, Healthcare Education Project, 7/28/20
End of $600 Unemployment Bonus Could Push Millions Past the Brink, NY Times, 7/21/20
The GOP’s radical plan to shield business from Covid-19 lawsuits, explained, Vox, 7/29/20
In GOP plan, you can’t sue your employers for giving you COVID — but they can sue you, L.A. Times, 7/28/20
Senate Republicans release stimulus proposal, Grant Thornton tax law firm, 7/28/20
Extend CARES Act Eviction Moratorium, Combine With Rental Assistance to Promote Housing Stability, Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, 7/28/20
Congress Should Cut Extraneous Spending from HEALS Act, National Taxpayers Union, 7/28/20
Think The Senate Funding Bill Is Just About COVID-19? Think Again, Forbes, 7/28/20
The Senate’s Proposal, the HEALS Act, Falls Far Short of Meeting the Needs of Children and Families in Crisis, Childrens Defense Fund, 7/30/20
New Stimulus Measures Taking Shape, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP