{"id":4636,"date":"2011-04-21T02:47:38","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T09:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4636"},"modified":"2011-04-21T02:47:38","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T09:47:38","slug":"action-alert-make-the-rich-pay-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/21\/action-alert-make-the-rich-pay-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Alert: Make the Rich Pay Too!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday I received a petition from Color of Change that I want to share with you.&#160; Representative Jan <\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\">Schakowsky is sponsoring the Fairness in Taxation Act to recover some of the wealth Republicans have redistributed from poor and middle class Americans to the super-rich and criminal corporations.&#160; First, here\u2019s video of Schakowsky explaining the problem and her bill.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" height=\"510\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ktXULJYNBC0?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">And here is the petition itself.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong>Make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"21taxrich\" border=\"0\" alt=\"21taxrich\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/21taxrich.jpg\" width=\"315\" height=\"314\" \/>In a stirring speech last Wednesday, President Obama reminded us of our common values &#8212; that as Americans, we believe in shared sacrifice during tough times, and shared prosperity when times are good.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">This Tax Day, we&#8217;ve seen those values flipped on their head. While America&#8217;s millionaires and billionaires pay the lowest tax rate in 80 years, Congress is slashing critical services like food stamps, family planning and foreclosure assistance that keep poor and working folks afloat. It&#8217;s immoral and un-American.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">It&#8217;s past time that we ask the richest Americans to start contributing their fair share. Please join us in supporting Rep. Jan Schakowsky&#8217;s Fairness in Taxation Act.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">&#8212;&#8211;<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Below is the text of the petition we&#8217;ll send to Congress on your behalf: <\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Dear Representative [your Rep.&#8217;s name],<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">I&#8217;m calling on you to join Rep. J in sponsoring the Fairness in Taxation Act, which would create new top tax rates for those of us fortunate enough to earn millions or billions of dollars each year.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Instead of shared sacrifice during these tough economic times, Congress has passed a federal budget that slashes critical programs that serve and uplift poor and Black communities &#8212; even as it preserves tax breaks for the most fortunate among us. In other words, the sacrifice isn&#8217;t being shared by the wealthiest among us. Millionaires have an effective tax rate of about 16%, the lowest it&#8217;s been in decades.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Rep. Schakowsky&#8217;s bill would level the playing field by creating new tax brackets for the richest Americans, starting at a 45% rate for those whose income is $1 million and topping out at a 49% rate for billionaires.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">The notion of taxing the wealthy to help meet our fiscal obligations has overwhelming public support &#8212; a recent NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81% of Americans favor boosting taxes on millionaires and billionaires as a deficit reduction strategy. The same poll found little support for cutting education funding and health care entitlements.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Asking the most prosperous among us to pay their fair share isn&#8217;t about punishing the wealthy. It&#8217;s about honoring the American value of shared sacrifice during tough times and shared prosperity during good times. I urge you to co-sponsor the Fairness in Taxation Act.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Sincerely,<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">[Your Name]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \" align=\"left\"><font size=\"3\"><a href=\"http:\/\/act.colorofchange.org\/sign\/taxes\" target=\"_blank\">Sign the petition here!<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I signed it, and I strongly encourage you to join me.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I received a petition from Color of Change that I want to share with you.&#160; Representative Jan Schakowsky is sponsoring the Fairness in Taxation Act to recover some of the wealth Republicans have redistributed from poor and middle class Americans to the super-rich and criminal corporations.&#160; First, here\u2019s video of Schakowsky explaining the problem <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/21\/action-alert-make-the-rich-pay-too\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}