MORNING MESSAGE
Ten
people will die every year to give a tax break to each of the 400 richest people
in America under the new Republican “health” bill. All in all, hundreds of
thousands could die over the next ten years to make the wealthiest among us even
wealthier… Dividing that ten-year tax cut by the ten-year estimated death toll,
we estimate each death provides $787,151 in tax breaks for the
wealthy.
(This updates a previous version with working hyperlinks)
Healthcare Fallout
Obamacare
repeal vote upends 2018 House landscape. Politico: “More than a dozen senior
Republican strategists, lawmakers, and potential candidates expressed varying
degrees of concern over the political implications of the health care push… The
vote, combined with President Donald Trump’s record-low poll numbers and rising
public dissatisfaction with how Republicans are wielding power over the federal
government, has produced a cauldron of instability for the party, which is
holding onto a 24-seat edge in the House.”
Cash
rolls in to progressive groups after healthcare vote. Mother Jones: “In the
24 hours since the House vote, Daily Kos, the 15-year-old Netroots stalwart…
raised $800,000 from 17,200 readers. That money will be split evenly among 24
Democratic candidates. Daily Kos is specifically targeting the 24 Republican
congressmen who voted for the bill but represent districts where President
Donald Trump received less than 50 percent of the vote.”
7
million veterans could lose health benefits under Trumpcare.
Alternet: ”Among the great many negatives in the Republican plan to repeal
Obamacare, it seems that one of their hastily-added “improvements” to the bill
could wind up making 7 million military veterans ineligible for health care tax
credits.”
New
research on why Republicans hate poor and sick people. Salon: ”Why do
Republicans and conservatives have such disdain for the weak, the vulnerable and
the sick? Why do they want to kill the ‘useless eaters?’ What does this tell us
about how Republicans and conservatives view the world, as well as their
relationships and obligations to other human beings? A new survey from the Pew
Research Center offered some helpful insights on these questions.”
The Rest of the Agenda
Trump
set to dump Paris climate deal. Commondreams: “The Trump administration has
a meeting scheduled this Tuesday to decide whether to drop out of the Paris
Agreement… Trump’s scorched-earth approach to environmental protections has
shocked current and former government officials overseas who are waiting
nervously to see whether the U.S. will destabilize the agreement by pulling out
of the deal.”
Trump
to announce slate of Federal court nominees. NYT: “President Trump is
turning his attention to the more than 120 openings on the lower federal courts.
On Monday, he will announce a slate of 10 nominees to those courts, a senior
White House official said, the first in what could be near monthly waves of
nominations.
FCC
pushes ahead to roll back common-sense Internet regulations. The
Nation: ”Ajit Pai, the former Verizon lawyer and current Trump-appointed FCC
chairman, has ushered in a virulent strain of market libertarianism… A key part
of Pai’s agenda is to hollow out net neutrality, the public-interest safeguard
that prevents Internet service providers from discriminatory practices like
blocking or slowing down online content or coercing fees from content providers
to create pay-to-play fast lanes.”
A
vote for tax cuts today is tantamount to a vote for tax hikes tomorrow.
Bloomberg: ”The Trump tax plan, because it generates deficits as far as the
eye can see, violates what’s known as the transversality condition, which says
that debt relative to the size of the economy cannot grow to infinity; fiscal
policy is sustainable over the long run only if there will be surpluses in the
future to offset deficits today… ‘If you propose a big tax cut without
offsetting spending cuts, then it’s essentially an incomplete proposal,’ says
Eric Toder, co-director of the Tax Policy Center… ‘What you’re implicitly
proposing is lower spending and higher taxes in the future.’”
Executive
order on ‘religious freedom’ will flood elections with secret money. Common
Cause: ”… (the) executive order is just an expansion of the disastrous
Supreme Court Citizens United decision which opened the floodgates of secret
money into our elections, taking the buying of influence from elected officials
into the shadows and away from public view. By funneling their political
spending through charities and religious groups, big money donors will also get
a tax deduction, forcing other taxpayers to foot the bill for this subsidized
political activity.”
More from OurFuture.org:
How
Trump Could Actually Stop Offshoring. Chuck Jones: “From Lyndon Johnson to
Barack Obama, American presidents have directed federal contractors — as a
condition of their receiving U.S. tax dollars — to change how they operate. So
Trump had the power from day one to stop federal contractors from shipping U.S.
jobs overseas if they wanted to keep getting our tax dollars. But he
didn’t.”
How
the “People’s Budget” Can Help Redress Inequality. Bob Borosage: “The
Progressive Caucus frames its budget around the central challenge of our time:
how to make this economy work for working people, and redress the savage
inequality that is undermining our democracy. It offers a strategy to get there,
and a budget framed to support that strategy.”
Progressive
Breakfast is a daily morning email highlighting news stories of interest to
activists. Progressive Breakfast and OurFuture.org are projects of People's
Action. more
»
