APRIL 5

  TAKE TO THE STREETS

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

 

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION    https://handsoff2025.com/

If you read our posts regularly, you will remember our commentary on November 14 about the importance of everyone becoming involved in the protection of our democracy.

There are some important ways you can become involved before Trump takes control of the government.  You can urge Congress and President Biden to take steps that could ease the damage Trump is likely to do once he has the chance.  We are already seeing how dangerous his administration could be as he announces his Cabinet and staff appointments.  It's terrifying!

For this reason we are inaugurating a new blog on the site.  "YOUR CALL TO ACTION" will be your tool for getting involved.  We want to make is as simple and easy as possible for you to do your part. 

Beginning today we will regularly post information on what you can do that day to help save democracy.  We urgently implore you to use the information to TAKE ACTION! 

As a first step, go to https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member .  Just as the URL indicates, you can find the contact information for your Congressperson and 2 Senators.  Put the information wherever you find it the easiest to access easily.  You'll then be ready to send a message and/or call them all in a few minutes.  in addition. to make it even easier, sign up on womensvoicesmedia.org and you will get a notice every time we post "YOUR CALL TO ACTION".

A fight over extending provisions of Trump’s tax cuts is at stake in November’s election. Ultimately, the race is about money.

By Sonali Kolhatkar

There are many issues on the line this election year but one that gets little attention is former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform law that cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanently reduced the tax rate for big corporations from an already-low 35 percent to a ridiculously minuscule 21 percent. It also lowered tax rates for the wealthiest people from nearly 40 percent to 37 percent. Several provisions of that law are set to expire in 2025, making this November’s Congressional and Presidential elections particularly critical to issues of economic fairness and justice.

A few months after Trump signed the bill, he boasted, “We have the biggest tax cut in history, bigger than the Reagan tax cut. Bigger than any tax cut.” It became a common refrain for him when touting his achievements. But, Trump, who was known for breaking all records on lying to the public while in office, conflated many different facts to come up with a positive-sounding falsehood in a nation already primed by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to view taxation as anathema. Trump’s tax cuts as a whole were the eighth largest in history. But his corporate tax cut was in fact the single largest reduction ever in that category.

Wealthy corporations have for years lobbied for and won so many carve-outs and loopholes to the U.S. tax system, and hidden so much money in offshore tax havens that their pre-2017 effective tax rates were already far lower than the official rates. Then, Trump lowered them even more. Imagine telling the American public that you are responsible specifically for the biggest tax cuts to the biggest corporations in U.S. history. It wasn’t a good look. And so, he lied, saying that he signed history’s biggest tax cut overall.

In the simplest terms, taxes are a way to pool collective resources so we can have the things we all need for safety and security. Progressive taxation is when wealthier individuals (and corporations) are taxed at higher-than-average rates because the richer one is, the less excess money one needs beyond one’s basic necessities. Progressive taxation ensures that wealth inequality doesn’t spiral out of control and helps ensure money that’s being sucked upwards, gets redistributed downward. When wealthy elites pay fewer taxes, they are effectively stealing from the public.

Since the cuts have been in place, many studies have attempted to assess their impact on the U.S. economy. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded in a March 2024 report that “[t]ogether with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush (most of which were made permanent in 2012), [Trump’s] law has severely eroded our country’s revenue base.”

Trump’s law accelerated the draining of our collective revenues to fund the things we need. Even the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation concluded that, as a result of Trump’s law, “The United States collects fewer revenues from corporations, relative to the size of the economy, than most other advanced countries.”

Trump’s tax cuts were quite literally regressive, rewarding the already rich. A 2021 ProPublica report found that just one last-minute provision to the bill demanded by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) for so-called pass-through corporations benefited a handful of the wealthiest people in the nation: “just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows.” It only cost about $20 million in bribes to Johnson (i.e., donations to the Senator’s reelection campaign) to enact this windfall.

It’s no wonder that the rich were thrilled with Trump’s presidency and that his virulent white supremacy and fascist leanings were not deal breakers.

It’s also unsurprising that wealthy elites are backing a second term for Trump. They want an extension of those tax bill provisions that are expiring in 2025, and perhaps an even bigger tax cut, if they can get it. If those provisions are left to expire, people making more than $400,000 a year—the top 2 percent of earners—will see an increase in taxation in 2025.

This is a demographic that is already prone to tax cheating given the IRS’s recent announcement that 125,000 Americans making between $400,000 and $1 million a year have simply refused to file taxes since 2017.

If the GOP wins control of the Senate and the House of Representatives this fall, and if Trump beats President Joe Biden, those cuts will become permanent. A GOP sweep in November will also usher in a new wave of threats to people of color, LGBTQ people, especially transgender communities, labor rights, and reproductive justice, as well as an escalation to the already-dire Israeli genocide in Gaza that Biden is fueling. It’s hard to believe but many Americans seem to have forgotten the horrors of 2016 to 2020.

But, at its heart, this election will be about money, for it will take a lot of money to fund the GOP’s reelection campaigns in order for moneyed forces to ensure they retain control of more money—democracy, justice, and equity be damned.

For Trump, this is even more important given his legal challenges. He’s relying on small-dollar donations from his base to cover his mounting legal fees and has had to post a $91 million bond to cover the fines he faces from a defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. The more desperate Trump gets in his bid to secure the White House, the more willing he and his party will be to sell the nation to the highest bidder. And, he will lie to the public by conflating tax cuts for the rich with tax cuts for all.

We ought to think of tax cuts in terms of public revenue theft. When the wealthy win lowered taxes, they are stealing money from the American public as a whole. As per the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, permanently extending Trump’s tax cuts will result in a loss of $3.5 trillion in revenues through the year 2033. That’s highway robbery.

There are many issues on the line this election year but one that gets little attention is former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax reform law that cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanently reduced the tax rate for big corporations from an already-low 35 percent to a ridiculously minuscule 21 percent. It also lowered tax rates for the wealthiest people from nearly 40 percent to 37 percent. Several provisions of that law are set to expire in 2025, making this November’s Congressional and Presidential elections particularly critical to issues of economic fairness and justice.

A few months after Trump signed the bill, he boasted, “We have the biggest tax cut in history, bigger than the Reagan tax cut. Bigger than any tax cut.” It became a common refrain for him when touting his achievements. But, Trump, who was known for breaking all records on lying to the public while in office, conflated many different facts to come up with a positive-sounding falsehood in a nation already primed by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to view taxation as anathema. Trump’s tax cuts as a whole were the eighth largest in history. But his corporate tax cut was in fact the single largest reduction ever in that category.

Wealthy corporations have for years lobbied for and won so many carve-outs and loopholes to the U.S. tax system, and hidden so much money in offshore tax havens that their pre-2017 effective tax rates were already far lower than the official rates. Then, Trump lowered them even more. Imagine telling the American public that you are responsible specifically for the biggest tax cuts to the biggest corporations in U.S. history. It wasn’t a good look. And so, he lied, saying that he signed history’s biggest tax cut overall.

In the simplest terms, taxes are a way to pool collective resources so we can have the things we all need for safety and security. Progressive taxation is when wealthier individuals (and corporations) are taxed at higher-than-average rates because the richer one is, the less excess money one needs beyond one’s basic necessities. Progressive taxation ensures that wealth inequality doesn’t spiral out of control and helps ensure money that’s being sucked upwards, gets redistributed downward. When wealthy elites pay fewer taxes, they are effectively stealing from the public.

Since the cuts have been in place, many studies have attempted to assess their impact on the U.S. economy. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded in a March 2024 report that “[t]ogether with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush (most of which were made permanent in 2012), [Trump’s] law has severely eroded our country’s revenue base.”

Trump’s law accelerated the draining of our collective revenues to fund the things we need. Even the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation concluded that, as a result of Trump’s law, “The United States collects fewer revenues from corporations, relative to the size of the economy, than most other advanced countries.”

Trump’s tax cuts were quite literally regressive, rewarding the already rich. A 2021 ProPublica report found that just one last-minute provision to the bill demanded by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) for so-called pass-through corporations benefited a handful of the wealthiest people in the nation: “just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows.” It only cost about $20 million in bribes to Johnson (i.e., donations to the Senator’s reelection campaign) to enact this windfall.

It’s no wonder that the rich were thrilled with Trump’s presidency and that his virulent white supremacy and fascist leanings were not deal breakers.

It’s also unsurprising that wealthy elites are backing a second term for Trump. They want an extension of those tax bill provisions that are expiring in 2025, and perhaps an even bigger tax cut, if they can get it. If those provisions are left to expire, people making more than $400,000 a year—the top 2 percent of earners—will see an increase in taxation in 2025.

This is a demographic that is already prone to tax cheating given the IRS’s recent announcement that 125,000 Americans making between $400,000 and $1 million a year have simply refused to file taxes since 2017.

If the GOP wins control of the Senate and the House of Representatives this fall, and if Trump beats President Joe Biden, those cuts will become permanent. A GOP sweep in November will also usher in a new wave of threats to people of color, LGBTQ people, especially transgender communities, labor rights, and reproductive justice, as well as an escalation to the already-dire Israeli genocide in Gaza that Biden is fueling. It’s hard to believe but many Americans seem to have forgotten the horrors of 2016 to 2020.

But, at its heart, this election will be about money, for it will take a lot of money to fund the GOP’s reelection campaigns in order for moneyed forces to ensure they retain control of more money—democracy, justice, and equity be damned.

For Trump, this is even more important given his legal challenges. He’s relying on small-dollar donations from his base to cover his mounting legal fees and has had to post a $91 million bond to cover the fines he faces from a defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. The more desperate Trump gets in his bid to secure the White House, the more willing he and his party will be to sell the nation to the highest bidder. And, he will lie to the public by conflating tax cuts for the rich with tax cuts for all.

We ought to think of tax cuts in terms of public revenue theft. When the wealthy win lowered taxes, they are stealing money from the American public as a whole. As per the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, permanently extending Trump’s tax cuts will result in a loss of $3.5 trillion in revenues through the year 2033. That’s highway robbery.

Author Bio: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

 This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Vote4Equality, #Nancy Polosi, #“WOMEN ARE GOING TO WIN FOR OUR COUNTRY!!”

That’s the message Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi delivered to Feminist Majority’s EqualiTEA gathering.  And there’s no question that dynamic is not just influencing the conversation—it is driving it.

The stakes have never been higher for women in America. The issues at play in this election at all levels of the ballot affect all women.  You see regardless of age every woman will be affected in some important way by the outcome of the 2024 elections.

And that’s why it’s so important that you and other loyal supporters understand why Feminist Majority’s Vote4Equality political action arm is so sharply focused on turning out young voters on key college campuses in key battleground and swing states.

The reason is simple:  A massive turnout of young voters will make the winning difference for each of no matter what our age.  Why?  Because young voters can provide the margin of victory assuring that defenders of reproductive rights, the ERA, LGBTQ+ rights and our other personal freedoms are elected or re-elected.

REGARDLESS OF YOUR AGE.., How the 2024 Election Will Affect You

Let’s take a closer look at how and why women of different ages are engaging with the programs of the Feminist Majority and the range of reasons they give for the importance and urgency of supporting our Vote4Equality mobilization.

Women in Their 20s: For women in their 20s, the 2024 election is about laying the foundation for the future. This generation has grown up in a world where gender equality has been a prominent discussion, but where there are still significant gaps in representation, pay equity, and reproductive rights. The overturning of Roe v. Wade has brought the fight for reproductive freedom to their doorstep. For young women, many of whom are not yet thinking about starting a family, the right to make decisions about their own bodies is paramount.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s strong stance on abortion rights resonates with many young women who see their ability to control their own reproductive choices as central to their independence and future opportunities. Harris’s candidacy also represents the possibility of breaking barriers in leadership—a message that encourages young women to see themselves as future leaders. This generation is more politically engaged than ever before, with issues like climate change, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ rights also high on their list of priorities.

Women in Their 30s: For women in their 30s, the intersection of career, family, and personal rights is often at the forefront of their lives. This group is navigating the complexities of advancing in their careers or working two or more jobs to make ends meet, all the while often balancing raising young children. The 2024 election is critical for them, as it will directly impact the policies that shape workplace equality, parental leave, childcare support, and reproductive health.

Kamala Harris’s candidacy brings hope for policies that support working women and mothers. Her advocacy for reproductive rights, affordable childcare, and equal pay laws is particularly relevant to this age group, many of whom are juggling work and family responsibilities. At the same time, the rhetoric from the opposing ticket, particularly from J.D. Vance, about traditional family roles and the diminished societal value of childless women, underscores the gender divide in this election. For women in their 30s, this is a moment to stand up for their right to shape their own lives, free from outdated gender norms.

Women in Their 50s: Women in their 50s are often at a crossroads, balancing shifting priorities as they transition from the intense demands of work and family to new opportunities and challenges. Many in this group are caring for aging parents while also supporting their adult children. They are at a stage where health care, retirement security, and equal pay are critical concerns.

For these women, the 2024 election is a moment to ensure that the progress made on gender equality is not rolled back. The focus on reproductive rights remains crucial, especially as women in their 50s reflect on the struggles they’ve faced, and the battles younger generations are fighting today.

Kamala Harris’s candidacy offers the possibility of policies that continue to advance gender equality, invest in elder care, and ensure that health care and retirement benefits remain accessible and equitable. On the other hand, the opposing vision, which includes efforts to restrict women’s rights and reinforce traditional gender roles, feels like a direct threat to the progress they’ve spent decades working toward

Women 65 and Older:  For women 65 and older, the 2024 election is deeply personal. This generation has lived through the civil rights movement, the battles to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and secure legal abortion, and decades of political change. They have seen victories for women’s rights, but in the absence of placing the already-ratified ERA in the Constitution,  they’ve also witnessed the erosion of these hard-won gains.

Many in this age group are also concerned about the legacy they will leave behind for their daughters, granddaughters, and future generations.

Reproductive rights are again at the center of the debate, and many women in this group are fiercely protective of the progress they fought for in their younger years. Kamala Harris’s candidacy is seen as a continuation of the fight for gender equality, and her policies on health care, retirement security, and social justice resonate with their vision for a better future. For these women, the outcomes of the 2024 election are about ensuring that the progress they helped achieve is not undone by regressive policies that would turn back the clock on women’s rights.

A Call to Action Across Generations

No matter your age, the 2024 election is about the future of gender equality in America. Whether you’re in your 20s, 30s, 50s, or over 65, your vote matters. And your help in advancing the critical work of our Vote4Equality mobilization is essential.

This election will determine the policies that affect your life—from reproductive rights to workplace equality to retirement security. It’s a pivotal moment for women across generations to come together and ensure that gender equality continues to advance.

As we head to the polls, we must ask ourselves: What kind of future do we want to build? For ourselves, for our daughters, for the generations yet to come? The answer to that question starts with doing the hard work of preparing our Campus Mobilization in the critical weeks ahead.

Let’s make the time ahead count.  Please help support these efforts today.

For Victory and Equality,

Eleanor Smeal, President, Feminist Majority Foundation     https://feminist.org/