https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awNOdSipgh0&feature
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Sanders Bill to Tax 'Obscene' Pandemic Windfall of Billionaires Would Empower Medicare to Cover Every American for One Year
"By taxing 60% of the wealth gains made by just 467 billionaires during this horrific pandemic, we could guarantee healthcare as a right for an entire year."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/06/sanders-bill-tax-obscene-pandemic-windfall-billionaires-would-empower-medicare-cover
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced legislation that would tax the "obscene wealth gains" America's billionaires have accumulated during the Covid-19 crisis and use the resulting revenue to empower Medicare to cover all out-of-pocket medical expenses for everyone in the United States for a year.
"We can continue to allow the very rich to get much richer while everyone else gets poorer and poorer. Or we can tax the winnings a handful of billionaires made during the pandemic to improve the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sanders said "if we taxed 60% of the windfall gains these billionaires made from March 18th until August 3rd, we could raise over $420 billion."
"That's enough revenue to allow Medicare to pay all of the out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for everyone in America over the next 12 months," said Sanders. "By taxing 60% of the wealth gains made by just 467 billionaires during this horrific pandemic, we could guarantee healthcare as a right for an entire year."
According to a fact-sheet released by Sanders' office, the Make Billionaires Pay Act would impose a 60% tax on all billionaire wealth gains between March 18, 2020 and January 1, 2021 and use the funds to cover the out-of-pocket healthcare expenses of all Americans for a full year. The legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).
"While a record-breaking 5.4 million Americans recently lost their health insurance, 467 billionaires in our country increased their wealth by an estimated $731.8 billion during the pandemic," the fact-sheet reads. "Incredibly, as a result of the Trump tax giveaway to the rich, these billionaires currently pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers or truck drivers."
Under the Sanders proposal, Medicare would cover all out-of-pocket healthcare costs for the tens of millions of people in the U.S. without insurance for a year. For Americans with either public or private insurance, their providers would bill Medicare for all out-of-pocket expenses.
"Everyone has suffered during the pandemic—from lost lives, lost jobs, lost chances—everyone, that is, except America's billionaires," Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement. "Senator Sanders' bill recognizes that a good chunk of the obscene growth in wealth by the richest Americans during a national emergency should be used to help us all survive and recover."
In his floor speech Wednesday, Sanders warned that the U.S. is "currently witnessing what is likely the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the very rich in the modern history of this country" as Congress fails to provide additional relief to workers and the unemployed while continuing to bail out large corporations.
"In the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of an economic meltdown for working families, in the midst of a great struggle regarding systemic racism and police brutality, in the midst of the existential threat of climate change, in the midst of a president undermining democracy and moving us toward an authoritarian government, in the midst of all of that, we are seeing a massive increase in income and wealth inequality and the movement in this country toward oligarchy," Sanders said.
The Vermont senator went on to list several examples of "morally obscene" billionaire profiteering during the pandemic:
While Amazon is denying paid sick leave, hazard pay and personal protective equipment to 450,000 of its workers, Jeff Bezos has increased his wealth by over $70 billion.
While U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the starvation wages at Walmart, our nation's largest private employer, the Walton family has made over $20 billion during the pandemic and now has a net worth of over $200 billion.
While 40 million Americans face eviction, Elon Musk has nearly tripled his wealth over the past four months and now has a net worth of more than $70 billion.
While millions of Americans are lining up at emergency food banks because they don't have enough money to put food on the table, Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook has increased his wealth by more than $37 billion during the pandemic and is now worth over $90 billion.
"At a time of enormous economic pain and suffering, we have a choice to make," Sanders said. "We can continue to allow the very rich to get much richer while everyone else gets poorer and poorer. Or we can tax the winnings a handful of billionaires made during the pandemic to improve the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans."
Watch the full speech:
Retirees Vow to 'Fight This Attempt to Gut Social Security' as Trump Announces Executive Order to Suspend Payroll Tax
"President Trump just betrayed seniors, ordering cuts in Social Security funding because Congress wouldn't go along with his payroll tax cut scheme."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/06/retirees-vow-fight-attempt-gut-social-security-trump-announces-executive-order
An advocacy group representing more than four million American retirees warned Thursday that President Donald Trump took a dangerous step toward "single-handedly" dismantling Social Security by announcing he plans to sign an executive order suspending collection of the payroll tax as early as Friday afternoon.
With congressional negotiations over the next Covid-19 stimulus package still at an impasse, Trump told reporters Thursday that executive orders to suspend the payroll tax, extend boosted unemployment benefits, and reestablish an expired eviction moratorium are "being drawn now" despite questions over whether the president has the authority to unilaterally take any of those actions.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a statement that "after learning that Democratic and Republican congressional leaders would not go along with his harebrained scheme to cut Social Security's dedicated funding source, President Trump lashed out and announced he would begin dismantling the system single-handedly."Trump said he expects to sign the orders "tomorrow afternoon or maybe the following morning" if White House negotiators and Democratic leaders don't reach a deal. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have rejected the idea of cutting the payroll tax, the primary funding mechanism for Social Security.
"Seniors pay for their housing, food, and medicine with their Social Security, putting $1 trillion into our economy every year," said Fiesta. "Older Americans have earned their benefits through a lifetime of work. Their retirement security should not be put at risk because President Trump is mad at Congress for not bending to his will."
The group's 4.4 million members, he vowed, "will fight this attempt to gut Social Security."
Progressive advocacy group Social Security Works tweeted Thursday that suspending collection of the payroll tax is "defunding of Social Security, as a first step to cutting our earned benefits."
"And doing so by executive order is unconstitutional," the group said.
“We Need to Empower Home-based Workers by Investing in More Co-operatives. Unity Builds Strength and Resilience”
Home-based workers are not even officially recognised as workers, so there have been no special schemes set up for them. Our people have no social security, no pensions and no insurance. Now there’s no work which means no income.
August 6, 2020 David Browne EQUAL TIMES
https://portside.org/2020-08-06/we-need-empower-home-based-workers-investing-more-co-operatives-unity-builds-strength
South Asia is home to over 50 million home-based workers, most of whom are women. From agarbhatti incense stick rollers in India to piecework garment workers in Sri Lanka, they contribute immensely to national economies in addition to their families and local communities as working from home allows them to take on care responsibilities. Despite working long, irregular hours for low pay and often with no proper contract, home-based workers are often the only income providers in their households. But they remain, nevertheless, an ‘invisible’ and isolated workforce given little or no credence in government policies, programmes and legal protections.
Now, with the advent of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, these most vital but vulnerable of workers are facing even greater hardship, exacerbated by the three-month-long lockdown in most countries in the south Asia region. Despite the fact that many homeworkers are sub-contracted by domestic and global value chains in a bid to cut costs (others are self-employed independent operators), the pandemic has left them without work, wages, unemployment benefits or any form of government social protection. As a result, many home-based workers and their families are facing hunger and a desperately uncertain economic future.
One of their main allies is HomeNet South Asia, a progressive worker organisation founded in 2000, and registered in 2006, with the support and backing of the Indian trade union SEWA (the Self Employed Women’s Association) and WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing). In March, it published a ‘Charter of Demands’ for, amongst other measures, income support for all informal workers, the recognition of home-based workers in law, and the establishment of a COVID-19 recovery fund. And earlier this month, it joined WIEGO, HomeNet South East Asia and the Asia Wage Floor Alliance to call on global fashion brands to make a supply-chain relief contribution (SRC) to the garment workers whose incomes and lives have been devastated by the pandemic.
Equal Times talked with Janhavi Dave, the international coordinator of HomeNet South Asia, and asked her how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted home-based workers – and what lies in store for HomeNet’s 900,000 worker-members.
What is the biggest problem facing home-based workers in south Asia during the current COVID-19 pandemic?
The biggest problem at the moment is food. There isn’t enough food. Many of our workers are having trouble accessing government welfare and food programmes. There are not enough rations for poor people and not enough food in ration shops. Some of our workers, for example, are barely surviving on a fraction of what they would normally eat.
Home-based workers are not even officially recognised as workers, so there have been no special schemes set up for them. Migrant workers have been forced to return to their native places because there’s no work and no money to pay rent. They don’t have the proper ration cards. Many people are surviving on cooked food given to them by religious organisations. There’s been a huge under-reporting of deaths.
What other issues are home-based workers in the region facing?
The problems they are facing are not necessarily new ones. Many are the same problems that we have been struggling to overcome since HomeNet South Asia was first established in 2000. But these problems have been amplified by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Work started reducing in January, and there’s been no work since March. Most workers still haven’t been paid for the work they did in January and February. There’s no work on the horizon for the next six months so they can’t buy the things they need.
Our people have no social security, no pensions and no insurance. Now there’s no work which means no income.
HomeNet South Asia covers Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Is the situation equally bleak in all countries?
Things are much better in The Maldives and Bhutan because so far they haven’t had so many COVID-19 cases. But in the other countries the situation is pretty much the same all over – especially in the slums and informal settlements, where community transmission of the virus is now beginning to really take off.
In India, for example, there’s been a lack of resources and not enough testing. And our peak is yet to come. Lockdown is a luxury for the few. For people living in informal settlements or slums it just creates more chaos. How can you confine people to their hutments for most of the day at the height of the summer? Of course, social distancing is necessary and ideal but how can you have safe distancing in such densely packed areas? People don’t have toilets in their homes. They have to go to communal toilets across the road. And yet police are patrolling and preventing people from leaving their homes for most of the day.
But surely some home-based workers have found ways to adapt and survive in the crisis?
Yes, but only a tiny minority. Of our 900,000 members only around 9,000 currently have access to work. Some of the garment workers are now making face masks, for example. Other home-based workers are selling through online platforms. Some are moving to growing and selling organic food. But almost all of these people are members of co-operatives and are organised, proving that together we are more resilient. Individuals, people working on their own, have found it almost impossible to get access to work during this current crisis.
What are the big lessons to be learned from the corona crisis, especially with reference to supply chains?
Traditional top-down supply chains have been created by design to maximise profits and exploit workers. What have companies done for home-based workers during this crisis? The answer is pretty much nothing. Look at the garment supply chains in south Asia and south-east Asia. There is no business for home-based workers. The workers have no access to social security. And the situation is the same in Africa, Latin America and central Asia.
It will take time for domestic and international supply chains to recover and for work to come back. I think it’s now imperative that we transform our supply chains from top-down to bottom-up domestic supply chains. We need to involve the poor and empower home workers by investing in more co-operatives. This pandemic has reinforced the message that unity builds strength and resilience.
And we need to engage with home-worker leaders to embrace and exploit new internet technology to develop online selling and trading, webinars and the exchange of knowledge. The coronavirus has been a major setback and highlighted our fragilities. Buy local, sell local is the new imperative.
Last week, HomeNet South Asia and three other labour organisations sent out a joint statement demanding COVID-19 relief contributions from global brands to all garment workers to help ameliorate loss of income due to the impact of the coronavirus. Can you tell us more?
Unlike factory workers, home-based workers are not recognised as legitimate workers. We have many members who are working in the garment sector. They may not be on the factory floor but the ‘brand’ is still their primary employer. In Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, for example, we have 40,000 home workers in garment supply chains; in Dhaka (Bangladesh) we have 60,000; in Kathmandu (Nepal) there are 3,500.
We believe all workers deserve equal treatment. This is part of our advocacy strategy. Sometimes we speak to the relevant government. In this case we are appealing directly to the brands and we are asking them to contribute the equivalent of two per cent of the value of their orders in the 12 months before the COVID-19 lockdown. We want this money to be paid directly to the home workers.
Brands should respond positively to this if, as they claim, they are really ‘with’ the workers. It’s not as if the pandemic will last forever. Home workers make their products and the brands need to continue the relationship.
If we can put COVID-19 aside, what lies in the future for the home-based worker movement?
At the moment, as well as HomeNet South Asia, we have HomeNet South East Asia, HomeNet Eastern Europe and HomeNet Central Asia. We also have an emerging network in Latin America and Africa. We are now in the process of forming HomeNet International and are planning to hold our first congress this October. The whole effort is being co-ordinated by WIEGO. It may have to be a virtual launch because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The International Labour Organization’s Convention 177 on the rights of home-based workers has still only been ratified by 10 countries [despite being adopted in 1996], so we still need the solidarity and support of international trade unions to get this done.
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