S. 1262, Native Culture, Language, and Access for Success in Schools Act
As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on October 20, 2011
S. 1262 would amend various laws governing Native American educational activities implemented by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Department of Education (ED). Assuming the appropriation of necessary funds, CBO estimates that implementing S. 1262 would cost $4.0 billion over the 2012-2017 period.
Tired of fighting cuts to programs that women and their families depend on in the name of deficit reduction — while millionaires and billionaires haven’t been asked to contribute an extra penny? Think it’s time for millionaires and billionaires who pay lower tax rates than many middle-class Americans to start paying their fair share?
Take Action: Tell your Senators to support the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012! WWW.NWLC.ORG
On April 16, we expect the Senate to vote on an important piece of legislation, the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (S. 2230). The bill would ensure that those with incomes over $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes. The legislation, introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was inspired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who highlighted the unfairness of a tax system that permits him to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.
It’s time for this absurdity to stop. We can’t afford to continue lavish tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. To help demonstrate the real cost of tax breaks for millionaires, we’ve put together a new infographic:
That’s right. This year, the average millionaire gets a tax break of $143,000 — enough to support child care assistance for 24 children, Pell Grants to 37 college students, or a home-delivered meal each day for 249 seniors.
This is a tradeoff we can’t afford to make any longer. Please share our infographic today and urge your Senators to support the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012!
Sincerely,
Joan Entmacher Vice President,
Family Economic Security National Women’s Law Center
P.S. Please help us continue to advocate for policies that protect and improve economic security for women and their families by making a generous donation today.
I
t’s hard to believe, but just three years ago, people with HIV were banned from entering the United States. You couldn’t visit a loved one, and becoming a citizen was out of the question.
Thanks to the hard work of HRC activists like yourself, we finally overturned the 22-year ban, and now we’ve arrived at another big moment: the return of the International AIDS Conference to the United States.
The conference unites the world’s most prominent activists, researchers, and policy makers to chart a path forward on HIV/AIDS.
And as the conference gets underway, The AIDS Memorial Quilt will also return to Washington, DC – serving once again as a powerful reminder of loved ones lost to HIV/AIDS and as a potent signal of the work left to be done.
Just as we have in the past, HRC will host a portion of The AIDS Memorial Quilt – along with your panel – at our national headquarters in Washington, DC. If you’ve already submitted a panel in the past and would like it displayed at HRC this summer, let us know here.
HRC is also bringing experts together for a discussion titled Addressing Stigma in Transgender and other HIV-Vulnerable Communities prior to the conference kickoff.
The return of the International AIDS Conference to the U.S. marks the beginning of a new era of progress on HIV/AIDS. The travel ban might be gone, but fear, stigma, and misunderstanding remain.
All around the world and here at home, there are still far too many new cases and too many lives shattered by this disease. The conference and the poignant tribute of The AIDS Memorial Quilt will serve to connect important thought leaders and bring attention to this still-critical issue.
HRC is honored to be a part of it all, and I hope you’ll help us mark this important event.
25 years ago, The AIDS Memorial Quilt helped inspire a movement that stemmed the tide of the epidemic. Now we need to revive that same spirit to meet these remaining challenges.
Thank you in advance for your participation.
Still fighting,
Joe Solmonese President
P.S. Volunteers for the International AIDS Conference get free access to sessions and a whole lot of other great opportunities. To apply to volunteer or to learn more about the Conference click here.
Even as top party leaders, including Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, continue to denounce the GOP’s very real war on women as a “fiction” “manufactured” by Democrats and the media, Republicans continue to add more fuel to the fire.
The Romney campaign got in on the action today. In an effort to distract from Romney’s abysmal record on women’s issues, Mitt Romney launched a bizarre and misleading attack on the president — an attack that none of his campaign’s top policy advisers could actually explain or justify this morning when pressed to do so by reporters.
But things really took a turn for the worse when Sam Stein of the Huffington Post simply asked if Romney supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — the landmark 2009 law signed by President Obama that corrected an erroneous Supreme Court decision and restored women’s ability to seek redress for pay discrimination. The Romney campaign’s response? “We’ll get back to you on that.” Listen to the six agonizing seconds of silence before the non-answer was given.
Things Go From Bad to Worse
In response to the almost immediate firestorm, the Romney campaign eventually put out a statement that merely said Romney had no plans to repeal the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Whether he would have signed it into law remains unknown. Lilly Ledbetter herself, however, was not pleased:
I was shocked and disappointed to hear that Mitt Romney is not willing to stand up for women and their families. If he is truly concerned about women in this economy, he wouldn’t have to take time to ‘think’ about whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. … Anyone who wants to be President of the United States shouldn’t have to think about whether they support pursuing every possible avenue to ensuring women get the same pay for the same work as men.
The Romney campaign then sent out a flurry of statements from female surrogates attacking President Obama. These too only dug the hole deeper:
Given that two of his surrogates voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, we asked the Romney campaign several times if he was opposed to that bill or not. The campaign declined to tell us.
Finally, it should also be noted that absent a badly flawed 5-4 Supreme Court decision, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would never have been necessary in the first place. Every single one of the Supreme Court justices who Romney has repeatedly said he holds up as models for the justices he’d appoint voted against Lilly Ledbetter when her case came before the High Court.
IN TWO SENTENCES: In 2012, women shouldn’t have to wait for an answer about whether they deserve equal pay for equal work. The 72 million women in the U.S. workforce and their families need to know that their basic economic security isn’t an open question.
Corporations keep finding ways to dodge taxes.
Even the “star witness” in the Prop 8 trial opposes North Carolina’s anti-marriage equality Amendment One.
One part of the world where income inequality is dropping.
China’s Communist party is moving to close ranks on Wednesday following a scandal in which Bo Xilai was removed from the party’s Politburo and his wife arrested as the main suspect in the murder of a British businessman.
SEC documents reveal that shareholders at five publicly traded companies — including Altria and Kraft — will put forward proposals calling on the companies to disclose ties to ALEC during upcoming annual meetings next month.
A billionaire oil speculator is helping bankroll the Karl Rove-founded group that is running ads attacking the president on gas prices.
Soccer players have superior brain power.
Matt Damon’s anti-fracking movie is ahead of the curve.
Mitt Romney is going to have a hard time making the case that President Obama is waging a war on women.
The Primary Is Over, But These Attacks Will Live On Late this afternoon, Rick Santorum announced that he was suspending his campaign, effectively handing the Republican nomination over to Mitt Romney. A top aide to the former Pennsylvania senator told reporters that Santorum and Romney agreed to meet in the near future, and Romney sent out [...]
Even the Gipper Wanted Millionaires to Pay Their Fair Share Last fall, when President Obama debuted the Buffett Rule — the simple idea that millionaires and billionaires should pay at least the same tax rate as middle class workers — we climbed into the wayback machine and found a video of President Ronald Reagan decrying “crazy” [...]
Progressives Put Spotlight on Shadowy Conservative Group You’ve probably never heard of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), but one of its biggest accomplishments has been in the news lately: so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that encourage people like Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman to shoot first and ask questions later. ALEC is also responsible [...]
Mitt Romney, Part 1: Of, By, and For the 1 Percent No matter how hard he shakes his Etch A Sketch over the next seven months, Mitt Romney won’t be able to erase the fact the he and his policies are of, by, and for the wealthiest one percent of Americans — policies that will [...]
