The Budget and Tax Cheats

 

As one of their first acts in Congress, House Republicans passed legislation to repeal most of the additional funding for the IRS that was included in last year’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act. 

Now, I know the Internal Revenue Service is nobody’s answer to “Which government agency is your favorite?” 

But the reality is that Republicans in Congress have been chipping (and sledgehammering) away at the IRS budget for years. In fact, Republicans have slashed funding for tax enforcement so much that there are fewer auditors today than at any time since World War II. 

Not at all coincidentally, that has made it easier than ever for giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy to avoid paying their fair share in taxes — which is exactly what far too many of them are doing. 

This maneuver by House Republicans is good for gazillionaire and Big Business tax cheats and bad for everyone else. 

The Senate is unlikely to advance this preposterous legislation, but let’s make sure every senator knows we’re paying attention. 

Tell the United States Senate: 

The IRS needs sufficient funding to go after billionaire and Big Business tax cheats and to provide reliable service to everyday taxpayers. The additional funding for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act will generate a net revenue increase of $124 billion over ten years. Do not pass the absurd and counter-productive legislation from House Republicans that would only hobble the IRS. 

Click to add your name. 

Thanks for taking action. 

For progress, 

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen 

MLK: There Is Nothing New About Poverty

 

“There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we now have the resources to get rid of it…Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know‐how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life?…There is no deficit in human resources, the deficit is in human will…The time has come for an all‐out world war against poverty.”

– “Where Do We Go from Here?” 1967

 

Taxpayers Funded Moderna Vaccine

 Pharmaceutical giant Moderna is threatening to more than quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine. (Pfizer has already made similar noise.) 

A few facts: 

• Development of the vaccine marketed by Moderna was actually done in partnership with the federal government — specifically scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — and almost entirely funded by American taxpayers, to the tune of some $1.7 billion.

• On top of that, the U.S. government has been paying the company an additional $26.36 per dose — for millions and millions of doses — for almost three years now.

• As a result, Moderna — a company with just three employees as recently as 2013 — made more than $19 billion in *profits* over just the past two years.

• By the way, it costs the company less than $3 per dose to manufacture the vaccine. And — again — research and development was paid for by the American people, not the company.

• Yet Moderna’s CEO — a French man named Stéphane Bancel whose personal net worth is estimated at $6.3 billion — wants to jack the price up to as much as $130 per dose.

Here’s some of what Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a recent letter to Moderna’s CEO: 

“The purpose of the recent taxpayer investment in Moderna was to protect the health and lives of the American people, not to turn a handful of corporate executives and investors into multi-billionaires. ... Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.” 

In reality, the so-called Moderna vaccine belongs to We the People. It is beyond outrageous for the company to even consider jacking up the price. 

A message for Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel: 

You have already become unimaginably wealthy as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine marketed by your company. As you know full well, the development of that vaccine was funded almost entirely by the American people. Yet you are now planning to more than quadruple the price, which will — not might, will — result in preventable deaths of people who cannot afford your outrageous and immoral price gouging. Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, refused to patent that medication — a choice estimated to have cost him $7 billion. Let that be your guidepost. How much more money could you possibly need, anyway? 

Click to add your name. 

Thanks for taking action. 

For progress, 

The Freedom Caucus Has a Harebrained Plan to Jack Up Taxes on the Poor

The Freedom Caucus Has a Harebrained Plan to Jack Up Taxes on the Poor: Under the ‘Fair Tax,’ the poorest fifth of Americans would pay roughly 70 percent of their income in taxes.

Older Voters Know What is At Stake

  

 

Older Voters Know Exactly What’s at Stake, and They’ll Be Here for Quite a While

Bill McKibben and Akaya Windwood 
January 22, 2023
New York Times

 

Older Voters Know Exactly What’s at Stake, and They’ll Be Here for Quite a While
https://portside.org/2023-01-26/older-voters-know-exactly-whats-stake-and-theyll-be-here-quite-while 

 

The founders of the group Third Act. 

 

The debt limit is the world’s highest-stakes horoscope: Not raising the debt limit would guarantee a recession

The debt limit is the world’s highest-stakes horoscope: Not raising the debt limit would guarantee a recession

Reclaiming U.S. Industry-Industrial policy

Reclaiming U.S. Industry: Biden’s industrial policies represent a stunning ideological reversal. The harder part will be making them work.