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Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Many Republicans and even some Democrats have been talking about cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age or using a Chained CPI to reduce payments.

But Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) set himself apart today by introducing a bill to do the opposite — increase benefits. Under Harkin’s bill, the benefits formula would be readjusted in a way that boosts benefits to beneficiaries by an average of $70 a month. In order to fund this increase and to maintain Social Security benefits for decades to come, Harkin would lift the Social Security payroll tax cap, ensuring that income aboveAi??$113,700 would be taxed as well.

Click here to sign on as a citizen sponsor of the Grayson-Takano letter asking Members of Congress to vote against Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit cuts.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Yesterday, the Philadelphia City Council voted 11-6 to pass an ordinance requiring that certain employers offer their workers paid sick days.

While this is a wide margin, Mayor Nutter is expected to veto the bill, as he did in 2011. It requires a two-thirds majority to overrule the veto, which means that the council would have to find one more “yes” vote.

One other city that is pushing for a paid sick days policy is New York City, where we’re working to pass such a plan.

Join with PCCC to ask New York City Council Speaker Speaker Christine Quinn to hold a vote on a city-wide paid sick leave.

Ed Schultz broke news last night: His MSNBC show is moving to Saturday and Sunday from 5pm to 7pm. Ai??Nobody on TVAi??is a stronger voice for working people than Ed Schultz. He deserves to know we treasure that voice — and will keep watching him.

Can you sign our thank-you card to Ed Schultz, and tell him what his voice means to you? Click here — and forward this to other Ed fans.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green will be on Ed’s radio show today at 2:05pm and will tell him how many people signed the card, and will read a note on the air.Ai??So sign today.

When unions were attacked in Wisconsin and Ohio, Ed was there.Ai??When Whirlpool fired workers in Iowa, Ed was there. When Bain Capital was moving jobs overseas from Illinois, Ed was there.

Ed has also been a great friend to the PCCC — featuring us on his show many times, and having multiple PCCC members on to tell their stories.

Ed deserves to know that the public thanks him — and we’ll keep watching as he remains a voice for us. Sign the card here, and pass it on.

UPDATE: Over 7,900 people have signed on to thank Ed.

UPDATE II: PCCC co-founder Adam Green appeared on Schultz’s radio show to announce we now have over 10,000 thank yous. He read notes from PCCC members and will continue to deliver thank yous and notes to Ed.

UPDATE III: We now haveAi??16,433 signers

UPDATE IV:Ai??Almost 20,000 people have thanked Ed Schultz for always standing up for working people.

UPDATE V: Almost 25,000 people have signed on.

UPDATE VI, MARCH 15th: Over 40,000 people have now signed on.

During his State of the Union address, President Obama unexpectedly called for a hike in the minimum wage to $9.25 an hour, and Congressional Democrats are calling for an even higher hike to $10.10.

The importance of boosting the minimum wage was highlighted earlier this week when the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released a report showing how difficult it is for low-income Americans to get affordable housing.

The report notes that there is no state in the country where a minimum wage worker working 40 hours a week can afford a two-bedroom apartment for their family. In the cheapest state, a worker would have to work approximately 1.4 jobs to afford such an arrangement, and in Hawaii, a worker would have to work 4.4 jobs at the minimum wage.

The report then follows up with this shocking fact:

The one-bedroom housing wage also exceeds the federal minimum wage in each state across the country. In fact, with the exception of a handful of counties in Washington and Oregon (where the state minimum wage is $9.19 and $8.95, respectively), there is no county in the U.S. where even a one-bedroom unit at the FMR is affordable to someone working full-time at the minimum wage.

As we’ve noted previously, one way to force House Republicans to support increasing the minimum wage would be to put increases on state ballots in 2014. This would increase progressive voter turnout and threaten to unseat Republicans who failed to back an increase.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Why has Wall Street escaped prosecutions?

During a Reddit question and answer session today, top Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling responded to a question from one user about how a “free market economy” can “exist when big actors cheat, break laws, and only get fined. They just consider this a business expense. Should we break up the banks?”

Sperling’s full response is here. He starts by dodging the question about whether we should break up Wall Street banks, instead simply saying that the Dodd-Frank financial reform law “creates new tools to unwind large financial firms without destabilizing our entire economy.”

He then goes on to defend the administration’s record of prosecuting Wall Street banks, saying, “I think we have a strong record.” To justify this statement, he says the administration “has filed 10,000 financial fraud causes against nearly 15,000 defendants ai??i?? including more than 2,900 mortgage fraud defendants.”

Notice that Sperling does not note who it is these defendants were — he fails to mention, for example, that not a single major executive at a Wall Street bank has been prosecuted for their role in the financial crisis. Rather, the prosecutions have been tilted towards loan officers and other low-level fraud. As Lanny Breuer, who was theAi??Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under Obama, admitted in a recent PBS documentary, “no Wall Street executives” were prosecuted by the administration.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has noted, the real problem is that too big to fail has become “too big for trial.” Watch her remarks at a recent Senate hearing, where she castigated federal regulators for failing to bring criminal cases against Big Banks:

Click here to join Warren in demanding that federal regulators hold Wall Street accountable.

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA)

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) — a freshman congressman who defeated a conservative Democrat in a primary last year — is a signer of the Grayson-Takano letter vowing to vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits.

While appearing on a local television show this week, Cartwright explained why he supports the letter and how he is worried that the President may agree to cuts to these benefits and how Congress needs to hold him accountable:

CARTWRIGHT: These efforts to cut Social Security, I will fight very, very hard against them. I’ve signed a letter to the president last month saying please do not cut Social Security please do not cut medicare we have people who really really depend on these programs. And you know when he goes to have dinner with the Republican leadership, and lunch with Representative Ryan, you worry, when he talks about giving on entitlements. Well that’s what he’s talking about. Is he going to cut Social Security and Medicare? I will push very hard against those things. And that’s something Congress will hold him on as well.

Watch it (relevant section begins at 4:15):

Cartwright’s concerns are based in recent history. Recall that the President has repeatedly endorsed the so-called “Chained CPI,” which would lead to reductions in Social Security and veterans benefits.

Click here to sign on as a citizen sponsor of the Grayson-Takano letter against Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit cuts.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Katrina Shankland is a former PCCC fellow who was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly

Last week, Wisconsin Republicans passed a law that weakens environmental protections and will streamline the construction of what may be the Ai??largest iron ore mine in the world. This was done despite the fact that the mine may poison nearby water streams with arsenic, lead, and mercury. This is particularly a danger to the nearby Native American communities, who have opposed the mine.

But while Republicans fell in line to support this attack on the environment, one freshman Democrat gave a fiery speech against it — standing as an example for all Democratic lawmakers. Rep. Katrina Shankland, a former Progressive Change Campaign Committee fellow, denounced the plan for the mine, warning that “the will of the people, not the mining company is the law of the land.”

Shankland went on to reference the Native testimony about the bill: “At the only mining bill hearing they had this session they testified from a place of truth. The talked about the wild rice beds. They talked about their families. They talked about their water. And you know what they said? They said that supporting this bill would be equivalent to genocide. And I’m saying that today because they said it and you should listen to them. Polluting an entire watershed for profit is contributing to genocide. And history is on their side.”

Watch Shankland’s speech:

Wisconsin Senate Democrats are organizing to stop the extreme Republican agenda in the state. Click here to chip in a few dollars to stand in solidarity with them.

The Congressional Management Foundation just released a study based on questionnaires of 25 Members of Congress. The CMF report has many interesting results, but one of the most alarming is how much time these lawmakers said they spent on political/campaign work — mostly fundraising.

Here’s a chart laying out how they spend almost a fifth of their time on this activity:

For some lawmakers — particularly freshmen from competitive districts — it’s even more. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN) said he was told to spend 30 hours a week fundraising.

Click here to join our Take Back Democracy campaign to help stop the influence of money in our politics.

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)

In the days after the Sandy Hook shootings, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) stood apart from his party by embracing some sort of tougher background checks for gun purchases and limits on high-capacity gun magazines.

But as Gingrey gears up for a possible Senate run, it appears that he is pandering to special interest groups like the National Rifle Association by backing off of these previous statements. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Gingrey claims his initial response was solely emotional and he does not stand by his words:

Gingrey said he was ai???thinking out loudai??? at the time, and was wrapped in thoughts about his own grandchildren and the 20 first-graders in Connecticut slain only weeks before, by a 20-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 with 30-round magazines.

ai???I have come to the conclusion that [limiting clip capacity] clearly would be a mistake ai??i?? that it would not solve the problem,ai??? he said. […] Gingrey endorsed the NRA insistence on tighter reporting by state and local governments on those judged mentally unstable, but said he would oppose mandatory background checks on private sales of firearms ai??i?? the so-called ai???gun showai??? exception.

As Gingrey says, he was thinking about his own grandchildren at the time he endorsed these gun reforms. Now he appears to be thinking about the NRA’s campaign dollars.

Click here to sign on in support of the White Houseai??i??s bold plan to stop gun killings.

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Money in politics isn’t just about campaign funds, is also involves what happens after a lawmaker leaves office.

In office, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) saved Wall Street banks tens of billions of dollars by writing loopholes in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

Today, the law and lobbying firm Nixon Peabody announced that it will be hiring Brown to assist its “practice on business and governmental affairs as they relate to the financial services industry as well as on commercial real estate matters.”

Nixon Peabody has clients that include Goldman Sachs, which paid it $140,000 in 2012.

Keep in mind that while it would be illegal for Brown to register as a federal lobbyist before his cooling off period ends, he is free to unofficially act as a lobbyist.

While Brown will literally work for Wall Street, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been aggressively taking on the Big Banks. Last week, at a stunning hearing before federal regulators, she asked why banks that launder money for drug lords are not being put out of business. Watch it:

Click here to join Warren in demanding that federal regulators hold Wall Street accountable.
Click here to join our Take Back Democracy campaign to help stop the influence of money in our politics.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

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