Our Lives and Our Future are On the Line, Don’t Surrender to Corporate Greed!
Call BOTH of your Senators.
Call ONE of the Representatives. Note: only one of these Congressmembers represents you. Find out which one here.
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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.
For your House Representative:
As you rewrite the BBBA, don’t surrender on key policies and programs that we desperately need. Don’t allow our health or climate to be held hostage by the greed of billionaires and giant corporations. The bill must include:
Moving from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy
Taxing corporations and the wealthy
Empowering Medicare to conduct price negotiations to lower the cost of prescription drugs
And please continue to “hold the line” on the Senate passing the BBBA before you pass the infrastructure bill.
For your Senators:
We are asking you to defend the BBBA provisions and policies which address climate protection, taxing the rich and empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices. We also ask you to strongly speak out against the hypocrisy of Senators Machin and Sinema for whom the cost of the bill is simply a cover to disguise their opposition to wildly popular policies and programs such as:
Moving from fossil fuels to a clean-energy economy
Taxing corporations and the wealthy
Lowering drug-price by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices
Background
By emphasizing the proposed dollar amount of $3.5T, most media coverage distorts what the focus of the negotiations should be: the policies and programs in the Built Back Better Act (BBBA), which are immensely popular with the American people across party lines and will strengthen our economy. The discussion about the dollar amounts of cost reductions to the overall plan has been used as a cover for surrendering to the armies of lobbyists stalking the halls of Congress.
The three provisions we emphasize in our Ask above are examples of policies that corporate Democrats are trying to kill behind a “too costly” smokescreen:
Moving away from fossil fuels to protect our planet and create tens of thousands of clean energy jobs in all 50 states,
Increasing taxes on the wealthy and the corporations to previous levels, and
Empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
They say these things are too costly, when they are all actually cost-saving measures.
Though all three of these provisions are broadly popular, for this issue of the ISF newsletter we will focus on the third item.
Four new Public Policy Polling surveys conducted among voters in Arizona, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia find strong bipartisan support for the key reforms to health care that are part of the BBBA that will lower drug costs and insurance premiums, expand Medicare benefits, and increase coverage. Overwhelming majorities of voters across party lines in each state support giving Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug pricing: 73% of Arizona voters, 74% of West Virginia voters, 77% of New Jersey voters, and 78% of Delaware voters support it, with a majority in each state saying they strongly support it. This is a majority across party lines, including 65-74% of independents and 63-74% of Republicans. (MEMO: Widespread Support in Key States for Medicare Negotiations to Lower Drug Prices, Other Key Health Provisions, and the Overall Build Back Better Plan — Protect Our Care, 10/14/21 )
The debate about the scope of the BBBA is not about left versus right or moderate versus progressive. It is about the future of our country: competitiveness versus complacency and opportunity versus decay.
How can we compete in the global economy if millions of American parents – especially moms -- can't be part of the workforce because they can’t afford the cost of child care?
President Biden’s BBBA will change that. It will cut the cost of child care for most families in half, ensure that no middle class family pays more than 7 percent of their income on child care, and get more parents back into the workforce.
We can’t afford to lag behind while other countries have continued to invest in building an educated workforce. When America made 12 years of public education universal more than a century ago, it gave us the best-educated and best-prepared workforce in the world. The BBBA will prioritize public education again:
Provide 2 years of high-quality preschool for every child in America. In the US today, only about half of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in early childhood education, whereas In Germany, France, the UK, and even Latvia, that number is over 90 percent.
Invest in higher education, increasing Pell Grants to help students from lower-income families attend community colleges and four-year schools.
Invest in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to make sure young people from every neighborhood have a shot at the good-paying jobs of the future.
Extend the Child Tax Credit, one of the biggest middle class tax cuts in history, that helps working families provide better lives for their children. This continues a very successful part of Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which expanded the value of the Child Tax Credit and arranged for monthly disbursement of the tax credits directly into tens of millions of hardworking families’ bank accounts. It has already dramatically reduced child poverty-- almost in half.
When we give working families a break, we’re not just raising their quality of life: we’re also positioning our country to compete for the future in a challenging global economy.
Another under-discussed part of President Biden’s full BBBA is that it is all paid for; it does not raise the national debt. It is paid for by a moral decision to prioritize tax cuts for working families over continuing tax giveaways to big corporations and the super rich. American majorities understand that there’s no reason why billionaires should pay lower tax rates than school teachers or firefighters.
The American people understand that when families have a little more breathing room, America has a better shot at building a stronger economy. They know this is about dignity and respect – and building our economy from the bottom up and the middle out strengthens our economy while giving all our working families the respect they deserve.
References
Key to Biden’s Climate Agenda Likely to Be Cut Because of Manchin Opposition (NY Times 10/15)
Follow the Money Into Joe Manchin’s Pockets, New Republic, 9/21
Head of Koch-Tied Group Urges Sinema to 'Stay Strong' as She Opposes Tax Hikes on Rich, Common Dreams, 10/15
Democrats Weigh Carbon Tax After Manchin Rejects Key Climate Provision, NY Times, 10/16
Big GOP Donors Poured Money Into Kyrsten Sinema’s Campaign in September, Mother Jones 10/16
Sinema rakes in Pharma and finance cash amid reconciliation negotiations, Politico, 10/15
Medicare Drug-Pricing Fight Centers on California Democrat Scott Peters, Wall Street Journal, 9/28
This Democrat got big money from Big Pharma — and turned against lower drug prices, Salon, 7/29
Americans for Tax Fairness- Billionaires Income Tax Ask (Sen Wyden)