Mr. President, Many Americans—especially those who need it the most—want to see the #BuildBackBetter plan pass as a step in the right direction toward addressing the glaring reality of 140 million poor and low-income people in this nation.
They stand ready to let their faces and stories be the narrative in support of this legislation. They are the people who need paid family & medical leave, Medicare expansion, etc.
Although thousands of poor and low-wage people and religious leaders have written you and signed petitions, we have not yet received a response from your staff.
But poor & low-wealth people—who represent the millions you are trying to help—are ready to meet with you & then let them speak to the nation about BBB. Poor and low-wealth people want to help pass this bill!
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James 5: “Now listen, you rich people, weep & wail b/c of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted ... Your gold & silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you & eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”
We were told during the impeachment trials that Congress can do more than one thing at a time. Why aren’t we talking about voting rights, living wages, reparations, police reform, immigrant justice, climate justice, etc. now?
#AhmaudArbery’s father, Marcus Arbery: “This is everybody’s problem. This is not just a Black-white thing. When something like this happens, it hurts all of us.” #JusticeForAhmaud
The #PoorPeoplesCampaign understands the intersection between acts of racial violence like the lynching of #AhmaudArbery and the policy violence that leads to so many unnecessary deaths in this nation.
The defendants in this case are trying to use a citizen’s arrest law that protected slave patrols to justify hunting and shooting a Black man out on a jog. This is not only murder. It is also an act of terrorism that is dangerous to all Americans, not just Black people.
We must ensure justice for this family and for a nation where acts of racist terror are fueling the politics of corporate greed and attacks on democracy. #AhmaudArberyTrial
I disagree that what happened with Democrats in the public debate over infrastructure and Build Back Better has been damaging to their image. 1/11
They could have not fussed, compromised in the backroom, and just cut people out. But progressives didn’t, the President didn’t. They fought for what they believed in and knew poor and low-wealth Americans—over 140 million people—need. 2/11
What they are debating is not $10 trillion, 1 trillion per year for 10 years like the @EconomicPolicy Institute recommended. It’s less than the $6 trillion @SenSanders proposed. It’s less than the $3.5 trillion the President came down to. It’s now just $1.7 trillion. 3/11
This is why voting rights have not received the same urgency as infrastructure & Build Back Better: “Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee: ‘Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. 1/13
‘We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.’ Rank democracy? The only saving grace for such a pronouncement is that, at last, a Republican politician was being honest about his or her intentions, 2/13
and this could well be a turning point in the narrative of our country and our national discourse.” —Joseph Stiglitz @NYTimes December 8, 2020
These are extraordinarily serious times. The lie of scarcity is just that—a lie. As we say in the #PoorPeoplesCampaign, we never want to be loud & wrong. So we’re grateful for economist @JeffDSachs standing with us & the people of West Virginia today to lay out truth about BBB.