Call your Members of Congress About the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

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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.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB) now being debated in the Senate is a sad shadow of what President Biden originally proposed. And failure to extend the CDC eviction moratorium threatens a new wave of homelessness at the very moment we're facing a new upsurge in COVID infections and transmission rates.

As your constituent, I want you to:

Insert language into the BIB restoring the CDC's authority to declare health emergency-related eviction moratoriums, adding new emergency financial support for renters, and changing rules and policies in any way necessary to get the previously appropriated help for renters into the hands of those who need it to remain in their homes.
Restore the IRS enforcement funding that Republicans removed from the original proposal. After ramming through huge tax cuts for wealthy individuals and rich corporations, it's outrageous that they continue to starve the IRS of the funds needed to track down and recoup illegal tax evasion by those who benefited from the cuts. Everyone, rich as well as poor, must be made to pay their fair share of taxes.
Adamantly reject Republican demands to eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act "prevailing wage" standard from BIB-funded infrastructure contracts. Without that standard, there will be a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions rather than the “good-paying union jobs” that President Biden originally proposed.

Background

Over the weekend, the national CDC moratorium on tenant evictions was allowed to expire right at a moment when there is a new and frightening upsurge in COVID Delta variant infections. Everyone is blaming everyone else: Congressional Democrats say Biden and the CDC can extend the moratorium, the White House says they can't without additional congressional authorization because of last month's Supreme Court decision, the House has gone off for summer vacation, and legal experts seem to be split on what the SCOTUS decision actually meant. Meanwhile, a tsunami of evictions is building in states that don't have local moratoriums. One way to break this deadlock is to add the missing congressional authorization to the BIB that is now before the Senate, and then recall the House to pass it, which Speaker Pelosi has said she would do.

The BIB language was negotiated in the Senate by a small group of the most conservative Democrats led by Manchin (D-WV) and the least Trumpite Republicans led by Collins (R-ME). Their goal was a bill that they could claim was “bipartisan” and would get at least 10 Republicans votes to override the inevitable filibuster. To achieve that goal, the Democratic negotiators accepted Republican ultimatums demanding that all provisions be “fully paid for” with no deficit spending, no rollback of any Trump tax cuts, no new taxes, and no social spending on what President Biden calls “human infrastructure” (people, families, racial justice, healthcare, housing, education, labor rights, and so on).

So now the BIB is limited to construction and repair projects that are valuable and important – but also favored by corporate interests who stand to reap hefty profits from government contracts. These infrastructure projects include building and repairing roads and bridges, public transit, railroads, water and wastewater facilities, airports, ports, broadband internet expansion, and electric vehicle charging stations. It is funded by accounting maneuvers, redirecting money already appropriated for COVID-relief purposes but not yet spent, phasing out tax credits intended to keep people employed during the pandemic, and delaying government spending aimed at lowering prescription drug costs for Medicare patients.

What's not in the bill are most of the programs and funding sources that President Biden originally proposed. The NY Times had the following visual representation:

Democrats promise that after BIB passes, they will come back and use their slim majority to enact a “Reconciliation bill that includes the provisions that Republicans rejected. But that will require the support of conservative Democrats like Manchin, Sinema, and our own Feinstein, which may not be forthcoming once the desires of Big Construction and Corporate America have been satisfied by the business goodies in BIB.

For years Republicans have starved the IRS of the funds they need to effectively crack down on illegal high-end tax evasion. The IRS has the resources to enforce tax laws against most taxpayers, but not the wherewithal to track down and crack down on the kinds of sophisticated evasion schemes used by the wealthy 1% and giant transnational corporations. This is yet one more example that “no one is above the law” is more myth than reality: the rich are allowed to escape paying their fair share of taxes, even when they violate the law.

Manchin's original Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) included increased funds for the IRS to track down and recover money owed by the 1%, for a net gain of $100B that would have paid for BIB programs. But Republicans balked; they falsely claimed that the IRS was biased against conservatives and would persecute them for partisan purposes – a lie based on the IRS challenging evangelical churches violating their tax-exempt status to support Republican anti-abortion candidates. So the IRS funding was dropped from BIB and the wealthy retain their tax-evasion impunity.

Back in the 1930s, the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA) required that contractors on FDR's New Deal programs had to pay their workers “prevailing wages,” meaning union-level wages and working conditions. This prevented a race to the bottom by corporations trying to maximize their profits from government contracts. Instead, it required them to pay a living wage to workers employed by New Deal programs, and later by defense industries. If Republicans are now allowed to eliminate the DBA standard in BIB contracts, it will destroy the economic foundation for the entire Green New Deal concept of offering living wage jobs in new green energy programs to workers losing their jobs in the fossil fuel industry. And that would threaten our nation's ability to switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

References

Senators introduce bipartisan infrastructure bill in rare Sunday session: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/565870-senators-announce-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-in-rare-sunday-session

FACT SHEET: Historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal ~ White House 7/28: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/28/fact-sheet-historic-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/

Here’s what’s included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill: https://www.witf.org/2021/08/02/heres-whats-included-in-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill/

Here's what's in the bipartisan infrastructure bill: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/politics/infrastructure-bill-explained/index.html

Congress Must Decide For The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill About Prevailing Wages: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2021/07/28/congress-must-decide-for-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-about-prevailing-wages/

Trouble: IRS funding snags bipartisan infrastructure deal: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/563263-trouble-irs-funding-snags-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal

The Infrastructure Plan: What’s In and What’s Out: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/28/upshot/infrastructure-breakdown.html