My e-mail inbox today reflects it: The president is pushing hard to fast-track TPP
AND tax the 1%.
You call this addressing income inequality?
First, a communication from Campaign for America's Future, rallying support to defeat Trans-Pacific partnership (TPP), the massive trade pact with Asian nations. I oppose that trade pact for all the reasons that Campaign for America's Future gives:
There was a reason corporations spent so much money on the last election and it wasn’t ideology. It wasn’t a gift. It was an investment.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive trade deal. It is being negotiated in secret, with citizens locked out. Big corporations and banks literally sit at the negotiating table. They spent millions on election contributions and lobbyists and they are getting their money's worth.
The pharmaceutical industry inserted patent rules into the TPP that will allow them to keep cheaper generics off the market for years by making minor changes to their drugs. This will hike industry profits, even as it prices the vulnerable out of drugs they need.
That's no exaggeration. Gleevec, a breakthrough drug against leukemia, cost $2,500 a month in the U.S. The patent holder was able to extend its patent by claiming a new use and raised the price to almost $8,000. That's $96,000 a year!
We have to stop this.
Right now, the president has lined up with Republican leaders in Congress and the corporate lobby to push for “fast track” authority that will grease the skids for the TPP. But they don’t have the votes...yet.
The Campaign for America’s Future is working with other progressive groups and allies in Congress (even some conservatives). We are revealing what is at stake. We will inundate Congress with letters and phone calls. We will expose who is on the wrong side.
Next, Rachel Collyer of the
Daily Kos, along with Nancy Pelosi, have a petition to sign to members of the House in favor of "President Obama's plan to address spiraling income equality." Subject:
Time for the top 1% to give back
President Obama and House Democrats want to close tax loopholes that benefit the one percent and impose new fees on Wall Street high rollers to pay for new tax credits for working families.
This revenue would be used to give tax credits to working families and make community college free for 9 million students.
99% of the revenue raised from these changes would be paid for by the top 1%, through Capital Gains taxes, closing the “Trust Fund Loophole,” and adding a 1% tax to Wall Streets largest banks.
Needless to say, this is an idea that is long past due.This revenue would be used to give tax credits to working families and make community college free for 9 million students.
Question -- Will Pres. Obama's plan to tax the 1% make up for fast-track passage of the TPP which experts say will cost American jobs, health standards, and net ever more vast corporate wealth?
Answer -- NO WAY.