Congressional Republicans just can’t get enough. They can’t get enough Big Oil giveaways. They can’t get enough handouts for their corporate friends. And they can’t get enough of your money.
In fact, they’re using your money to get those things. Without any sense of shame, they’ve packed HR 3630 with handouts for Big Oil and tax giveaways designed to please the corporate backers that bankroll House Republican campaigns in exchange for one thing: your tax dollars.
HR 3630 shrinks the badly needed tax cut 160 million hard-working Americans and small businesses would receive in exchange for fast-tracking the catastrophic Keystone XL Pipeline, cutting unemployment benefits by 40 weeks for six million struggling Americans, and including big business giveaways like investment write-offs and a corporate tax holiday.
And guess who’s sponsoring this plan? Michigan’s own Rep. Dave Camp and Fred Upton, favored sons of Wall Street, Big Oil, lobbyists, and assorted special interests: to the tune of $1.3 million and $908,000 this year alone, respectively.
In Michigan, the payroll tax cut proposed by President Obama would mean an average of $1,430 for a typical working family — money that families need to pay for costs like groceries, medical care, and mortgages. As wages struggle to keep up with the cost of living, working Michiganders deserve a payroll tax cut free of special interest giveaways that benefit Big Oil and multi-national corporations.
Michigan’s House Republicans need to get it through their heads: we need an economy that works for the 99 percent, not just CEOs and Wall Street companies. Sign our petition and tell Michigan’s Congressional Republicans to put working Michiganders ahead of millionaire tax giveaways by extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits immediately.
P.S. For those that are interested, here is the list of demands included in the House Republican ransom note, err… HR 3630:
- Forces President Obama to fast-track a permit decision on the catastrophic Keystone XL oil sands pipeline within 60 days. The President must determine if the pipeline is “in the national interest;” in the event that it isn’t the President must submit a letter to Congress explaining the decision.
- Investment write-offs. Both big and small companies would get to completely write off investments purchased in 2012, continuing a policy that extended the Bush-era marginal tax rates.
- Tax repatriation holiday for multi-national corporations. Basically, corporations that have been storing assets overseas can bring them back to the States at an obscenely low tax rate. Capitalism!
- Reduces unemployment benefits to 59 weeks.
- Extends payroll tax cut at 4.2{ef69e4e9e447e52a60027e369ac6a3d796f53805e5a70de1d67ce22dac9553da} rate for one year (which translates into less money for working Michiganders than President Obama’s plan).
- Cut $42.9 billion in funding for implementing the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law that benefits working Michiganders, students, and families.
- Delay and potentially weaken Environmental Protection Agency air-pollution regulations for industrial boilers and incinerators.
- Freezes pay for federal employees
- Restricts benefits for illegal immigrants.
- Gradually increases Medicare premiums for the wealthy. (Shouldn’t we be doing this already?)
- Prohibits millionaires from receiving unemployment benefits and food stamps (This happens? Oh, wait… no, it doesn’t. It’s just another meaningless demand from the out-of-touch far-right.)