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You pay your taxes, so why don’t corporations?

The sequester continues to harm important investments in America, with the latest casualty being the National Park Service — which may have to shed employees and deny park visits which would mean losing 267,000 visitors.

But as average Americans feel the pain of $85 billion of annual cuts, corporations continue to rip off the Treasury.

Recall this July 2011 report from the Center for American Progress. Drawing on Internal Revenue Service data, it estimates that corporations underpay their taxes — either through evasion or noncompliance — by $400 to $500 billion every single year. So that means at the very least that corporations are dodging taxes that are equal to four times the amount that the sequester is cutting.

Some in Congress want to replace the sequester with a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.Ai??Click here to sign on as a citizen sponsor of the Grayson-Takano letter against Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit cuts.

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Colorado’s state flag

Colorado is not waiting for Congress to act on gun reforms. Over the weekend, a spree of gun reform bills advanced through the legislature, winning approval in the Senate:

A ban on guns for individuals guilty of domestic abuse
Universal background checks including for private purchases
A limit on magazine sizes that limits them to 15 rounds
A ban on online concealed carry certification

Click here to sign on in support of the White House’s bold plan to stop gun killings.

Today is International Women’s Day, and governments and civil society around the world are celebrating it with events marking progress towards gender equality and calling for additional action to achieve full equality.

But few people know where the day originally comes from. In 1857, female garment workers in New York City staged mass protests against low wages and poor working conditions. Police attacked the demonstrators, forcing them to disperse, but the event helped spur the creation of the first women’s labor union.

By 1908, this women’s labor movement had expanded, and 15,000 women marched in March of that year for voting rights, better pay, shorter working hours, and an end to child labor. In May of that year, the Socialist Party —which won 900,000 votes four years later — declared that the last Sunday in February would be National Women’s Day. The first National Women’s Day was celebrated in 1909 and soon other countries jumped on board, marking it International Women’s Day.

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Constituents delivering a petitioned signed by 702 people in the district asking Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL) to vote against cuts to benefits.

Yesterday, constituents working with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, CREDO Action, and Democracy for America visited Congressman Patrick Murphy’s (D-FL) office to ask him to sign the Grayson-Takano letter pledging to vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. Ai??They presented the office with a petition in favor of the letter signed by 702 constituents. Recall that Murphy recently signed a letterAi??with dozens of House Republicans calling for deficit reduction and which only embraced protecting current beneficiaries’ benefits. As Americablog notes, the letter has the support of more Republicans than Democrats and is essentially “pro-cuts.”

“Those of us who are trying to hold onto our Social Security, our Medicare…my husband and I couldn’t live without Medicare or Social Security,” NormaAi??Riccobene said to Murphy’s district director Michael Kinney. “We paid into Social Security, we paid into Medicare. Don’t tell me you’re going to cut it or tweak it.”

“There’s no doubt Congressman Murphy’s committed to the integrity of those programs,” responded Kinney.

Watch the visit:

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.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) appeared before the Senate Banking Committee again today, and asked federal regulators about the topic of money laundering by Wall Street Banks.

Warren wondered aloud why Big Banks can get away with money laundering through drug lords and freely violate economic sanctions without being shut down, talking about the example of mega-bank HSBC.

WARREN: How many billions of dollars do you have to launder through drug lords, and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?

DAVID COHEN, REGULATOR: We determined the appropriate response [with HSBC] there was a very very significant penalty against the institution […]

WARREN: How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords before somebody says we’re shutting you down?!

Watch Warren’s grilling of regulators:

Ai??Recall that HSBC moved $881 million in drugAi??traffickingAi??money, and only faced a paltry $1.9 billion fine for it.

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Join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

As long as elections are primarily privately financed, we can expect corruption. One solution is to set up a voluntarily public financing system that gives grants to candidates who can collect a certain number of donations and signatures who prove that they are viable.

Yesterday, the Hawaii House by an overwhelming 48-3 vote passedAi??a bill to do just that. Under the terms of their Fair Elections program, these are the thresholds that candidates would have to pass before getting public funding: “House candidates would need 250 signatures from district registered voters, each accompanied by a $5 donation; signatures from 350 voters, each donating $5, would be required for Senate candidates.”

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.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has teamed up with Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) to ask their congressional colleagues to sign a letter pledging to vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.

Grayson appeared on Take Action News and talked about the letter with host David Shuster and producer Daniel Marans. Marans asked Grayson about the reactions of Americans if benefits were cut, and Grayson replied that Americans would be marching in the streets of Washington, D.C. and state capitols:

MARANS: I think we need to take this eventually to acts of civil disobedience, and getting arrested at the capitol and White House, doing things to stop this at all cost. If it came to that would you support that?

GRAYSON: Listen it will come to that if they actually go through with cuts. If they go through with cuts, you’ll see people pouring into the streets. Pouring into the streets of Washington, D.C. and every other capital, state capital, and major city in the country. This is going to be intolerable for people, this is in fact a matter of life and death in their own lives. And what’s the point? The Social Security Administration has almost $2 trillion in the bank. $2 trillion. That’s a program that’s operated at profit virtually every single year since it started 80 years ago. And under the current law, under current assumptions, under current projections, that’s a system that can pay out every single benefit required under current law for the next 25 years, and minor tweaks would make that forever.

Listen to it:

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

Listen to our national conference call with Alan Grayson …

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)

Late last week, the House of Representatives finally renewed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), sending it to President Obama for his signature. This was after Republicans failed to pass their own watered down alternative that sought to exclude protections for undocumented women, Native American women, and the LGBT community.

But there was one Republican running for U.S. Senate in 2014 who didn’t supportAi??renewing the VAWA or the right-wing alternative: Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who’s vying for his party’s nomination for Senate from Georgia. He was just one of 27 House Republicans who refused to vote for either version, and the only Georgian to do so — something that could prove a liability with the electorate, particularly women, whose protections he opposes.

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Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA)

Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor Tom Corbett has been an ally to Big Business and the rich — Ai??subsidizing private schools, cutting taxes on the rich, and opening up more land for gas drilling.

An investigation published this morning by the Philadelphia Inquirer finds one reason why: Ai??since he ran in 2010, lobbyists and corporations have given over $11,000 in gifts and perks to Corbett and his wife. Here are a few of them:

$2,500 tickets to theAi??Ai??Philadelphia Academy of Music anniversary concert: These tickets came courtesy of the Blank Rome law firm, which represents gas drillers among others.
Expensive flights on private jets:Ai??Frank Schoeneman, chief executive of the Pottsville-based Empire Education Group, flew Corbett on a private jet to an event in Pittsburgh, for a cost of $1,407.
Buying the first lady a pricey gown: The chief executive ofAi??Aegis Security Insurance donated $1,800 for the cost of Mrs. Corbett’s inaugural gown and coat.

Pennsylvania law technically bars donors from giving anything to a public official that would guarantee a quid-pro-quo — meaning that if Corbett were to explicitly guarantee anything in return for these gifts, he’d be breaking the law. But it does not ban gift-giving.

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.

In November, organizers with Occupy Wall Street had an idea: buy up people’s personal debt — like student debt and debt resulting from health care bills — and simply forgive it.

They called their program a “bailout of the people by the people” and named it Rolling Jubilee — based on the Biblical parable of the Jubilee year, where debts would be forgiven.

Since they launched their effort, they have raised $561,587 to abolish $11,236,570 of personal debt. Ai??Check out their website for information on how to get involved.

We have set up a tool that helps you move your money from Big Banks to smaller banks and credit unions. Click here to check it out.

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