Tell your Members of Congress: A Quality Education is a Human Right!
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.
I believe that a quality education is an essential human right!
I want to express my strong support for full implementation of the education-related provisions in President Biden’s American Family Plan as provided for in the Budget Resolution:
Free universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds
Four years of free education at all public colleges
Two years of free community college for degrees or certificates.
Increased investment in Pell Grants to aid all students
Increased investment and support for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs
Increased investment in apprenticeship programs
Increased investment in training, equipping and diversifying American teachers
Guarantees and funding for racial and gender equality and access
And finally, it is imperative that you in Congress quickly empower the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to issue and enforce common-sense, national public-health-emergency orders and directives such as eviction moratoriums to slow the spread of infectious diseases during a pandemic.
Background
Biden’s American Jobs and Family Plans (AJFP) enjoys wide public support. But support is not universal. Republican Party officials remain adamantly committed to their small-government, no public spending policies (except for military & police), and lower taxes for the wealthy--even though a significant number of Republican voters support many of Biden’s proposals. Corporate America and chambers of commerce support Biden’s proposals for large-scale investment in physical infrastructure (steel & concrete), which deliver hugely profitable government contracts. But they reject as unnecessary his human infrastructure provisions related to families, healthcare, housing, education, and child poverty. And, of course, they hate with raging passion his proposal to pay for the AJFP with the beautifully named Made In America Tax Plan, which raises taxes on the wealthy and big business.
Conservative Democratic senators, who prefer to call themselves “moderates” or “centrists,” aligned themselves with corporate America to separate out the provisions favored by business interests and the construction-trades unions into a separate Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB), which they passed and sent to the House in August.
The Progressive Caucus argued for passing Biden’s full AJFP in one single reconciliation bill but were told that most of what they (and Indivisible) wanted would later be included in the budget reconciliation bill. Many House Democrats remain concerned about Republicans repeating previous tactics by negotiating a weaker, bipartisan package for weeks, then not voting for the full package once the bill favored by their big donors has been passed. So progressives are demanding that the House delay adopting the BIB until the Senate has also passed a human infrastructure bill that the House can enact in tandem with the BIB.
As a result, September is shaping up as a month of intense political battle in Congress over both voting rights and economic issues. We in Indivisible need to make our voices and opinions known.
References
Fact Sheet: American Family Plan (White House) , which includes the Made In America Tax Plan https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/28/fact-sheet-the-american-families-plan/
Here's What's Included In The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB), NPR, 8/10/21
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009923468/heres-whats-included-in-the-infrastructure-deal-that-biden-struck-with-senators
The infrastructure bill is being lauded as a victory for bipartisanship – but is it? Guardian 8/9 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/09/us-senate-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill