Return to Tax Sanity

New polling shows that 64% of voters think the best way to address the deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthiest. A whopping 80% oppose any cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. 

Voters get it. Why don’t Republican lawmakers? 

Last month, when it was reported that GE and many other major American corporations paid nothing in U.S. taxes due to corporate tax loopholes and tax refunds amounting to more than taxes owed, we launched a petition calling on Congress to get its priorities straight. 

Here’s what you can do:

• Sign the petition. Then share it and urge others to sign.
  
• “Like” the Facebook page "I Pay More Taxes Than GE." Also use Facebook to share the petition and post a photo of yourself holding an “I Pay More Taxes Than GE” sign on that Facebook page.
  
• If you are on Twitter, please post a message about this issue with the “hash tag” #IPayMoreTaxesThanGE.
  
• Donate to our efforts to change the debate, and advocate and mobilize grassroots support for a budget that doesn’t pay for corporate welfare on the backs of the middle class and seniors.

On virtually a straight party line vote, Republicans in the House of Representatives last week passed a budget plan that would decimate a fundamental cornerstone of the social contract it would extend trillions more in tax breaks to billionaires and corporations and essentially privatize Medicare and Medicaid, leaving countless seniors and their families with a crippling and likely unbearable burden. 

Something is very wrong here. Even every conservative’s hero, Ronald Reagan, was willing to raise taxes on corporations when the need arose. In 1986, in the biggest corporate tax increase in history, he raised corporate taxes by $120 billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300 billion over that same period. 
Please take action now using the social media tools we’ve provided or by contributing to our work on this critical issue. 

Americans are jobless and hurting while corporations’ and their executives rake in record profits. But the GOP in Congress and the states wants to burden the middle class, the poor and seniors with even more sacrifice via draconian program cuts rather than ask millionaires, billionaires and corporations to pay their fair share. A janitor in NYC pays a higher effective tax rate than a millionaire who makes 50 times his salary! 
It’s time to change the debate from one about cuts to one about revenue. Congress must protect Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other vital programs that are part of the social safety net which millions of Americans need now more than ever. But Republicans are hell bent on sacrificing those programs to protect tax breaks for billionaires and their corporate donors. 
The American people are on our side -- this is a debate we want to have and that we can win.Help us do it. 

Thank your for standing with us to defend the American Way. 

-- Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager