President Obama invited the surviving participants in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike to honor their fight on behalf of all workers for safe workplace conditions, respect in the workplace, and a better life for themselves and their families.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed while in Memphis trying to support the striking sanitation members, who were working toward forming a union.
Working Washington Protests Tax Dodger Weyerhaeuser
It's Tax Day. Maybe you paid your taxes, but you know who didn't have to pay any last year? Weyerhauser, which kept $37 million.
That's why on Thursday we gathered around the Weyerhaeuser shareholders meeting to protest that they've taken our money, but instead of creating jobs for this community, have eliminated 748 jobs since 2005.
Not only did we spread the word about Weyerhaeuser to shareholders as they arrived in Federal Way -- we also asked some questions inside the shareholders meeting about creating a plan to create good jobs.
"I pay taxes. Why shouldn't Weyerhaeuser?" asked Federal Way resident Omar Rubi. "They should create jobs for the community if they're going to take tax breaks."
Wendy Hall, co-chair of Pierce County Jobs With Justice's organizing committee, hoped Thursday's protest will motivate lawmakers to address corporate tax breaks.
"We're in a budget crunch," Hall said. "The least they can do is pay their taxes."
Do the Tax Shuffle!
Who knew calling out corporations like Carnival Cruise Lines for not paying their fair share could be so fun?!
From the article in the Miami News-Times:
To celebrate Tax Day, the folks at Right to the City and MoveOn.org decided it was high time to combine the best traditions of 1985-era Chicago Bears dancing and progressive lefty political agitation. The result? Behold the “Tax the Rich Shuffle.”
William “The Fridge” Perry was sadly not involved, but a hundred or so protesters did mass around the Carnival Corporation’s headquarters in Doral this afternoon to bust out the protest dance. The reason? They say Carnival got away with paying a measly 1.1 percent federal tax on its highly profitable business.
Pay Your Taxes? These 10 Corporations Did Not
On tax day each year, everybody is supposed to pay their fair share to keep our country running...unless you're the beneficiary of corporate tax cuts and loopholes like hundreds of American corporations. Senator Bernie Sanders recently compiled a list of corporate freeloaders and topping the list are corporations such as Exxon, Bank of America and General Electric. The same Republicans who are spending their days attacking hardworking middle class Americans and blaming them for our fiscal crisis are unwilling to call on corporations to pay their fair share of the tax burden. See the list at MoveOn.org.
Mortgage Brokers Get Tax Break, Everyone Else Gets Hurt
In this time of budget crisis, we need to ask: do mortgage brokers need million dollar breaks? The state tax code contains hundreds of giveaways to special interests that drain taxpayer money just as we’re considering huge tuition hikes and the elimination of health care and other important programs. Since 1997, mortgage brokers have received a B&O tax exemption for money received from trust accounts.
In the last four years, this tax break has cost the public $4.8 million, and it benefits only mortgage brokers.
What’s at stake? How else could we spend $4.8 million?
Ashley Molenda works with some of the most vulnerable members of our community at DESC, an emergency service center in downtown Seattle. Ashley’s program makes one-on-one contact with mentally ill people living on the streets—people in dire need of help—with counseling, housing, and maintaining access to medication and other services. The program saves lives; it also saves money by helping clients remain self-sufficient and avoid hospitalization or needless arrests. “If we don’t reach these people to provide help, nobody else will,” says Ashley. “Without effective treatment, they will just bounce back and forth from emergency rooms, to jail, to the street. It’s a cycle that cuts lives short. It also costs the public more in the long run.”
There should be no sacred cows when it comes to balancing the budget, not for mortgage brokers or anyone else. There is simply too much at stake.
(Also posted to Families for a Fair Economy)
What’s at Stake
Every parent of school-age kids knows a simple fact: the fewer the kids in a classroom, the better. This New York Times story about the trends of growing class sizes states: “Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement.” But the Great Recession has sent states scrambling for money, and stuffed classrooms to the gills. This is bad news for K-12 parents, but it doesn’t get better for families sending a kid to college. With double-digit tuition increases on the horizon, it looks like education is being sacrificed on the alter of an all-cuts budget. Just another example of the middle class getting squeezed.
(Also posted on Families for a Fair Economy)
Nurses Care About Our Communities
Later today in Yakima, nurses, healthcare workers and community advocates will appeal directly to bank officials in Yakima to return the multi-million dollar tax breaks they receive under an outdated tax loophole, while patients and families lose access to healthcare. “More cuts to Basic Health and the Disability Lifeline will mean more people who can’t get the help they need. If state leaders succeed in closing Yakima Valley School, that’s going to cost our community 300 jobs as well as services that we badly need. Tax breaks for banks and big business are money on the table that could be used to help patients. The banks should share in the sacrifice that so many of us are being asked to make,” said Sandra Quick, an RN at Yakima Valley School.
“We’re essentially giving revenue away, but we don’t know where our patients, families or neighbors will go for healthcare,” Sandy continued. “It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not right.”
(Also posted to Families for a Fair Economy.)
Time to Put On the Green Eye Shades
It’s crunch time with the state budget, and every penny counts. But why doesn’t government start acting like a business? That’s the question posed by state Rep. Andy Billig from Spokane in this thought-provoking editorial. It’s so obvious. Discounts mean less money coming in. When a business is having a tough time, it re-examines the discounts it offers. But the state has put corporate tax loopholes off limits. And that’s just a recipe for bad management.