March, 10 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mark Stanley, press@demandprogress.org
Caitlin Seeley George, press@fightforthefuture.org
Groups Call on Biden to Appoint a Champ to the FCC to Reinstate Net Neutrality and Get People Internet Access
Net neutrality activists relaunch Battle for the Net, demanding the Biden administration end the revolving door at the FCC and restore the open Internet.
WASHINGTON
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, affordable and reliable Internet access has never been more important. Many people are still working from home, children are still learning online, and people looking for information about where and when to get a vaccine often require the Internet. But nearly 80 million people in the U.S. still do not have adequate broadband at home--with poor families and people of color disproportionately disconnected.
More than 20 organizations are joining forces to call on the Biden administration to address this ongoing issue. Battle for the Net has long been the grassroots hub for information and action regarding net neutrality. Now, Fight for the Future and Demand Progress are working with a coalition of digital and civil rights organizations to re-focus this fight by demanding the Biden administration appoint a fifth commissioner with no telecom industry ties to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
"Americans desperately need a return to an FCC that is an empowered advocate for the public, not the telecom industry," said Mark Stanley, director of operations for Demand Progress. "The Biden administration has a historic opportunity to close the digital divide for millions, ensure net neutrality, and protect consumers against ISP abuses. It is no longer a question of whether broadband internet access is an essential service. It is, and it is critical that Biden's nominee is someone who embraces this reality and supports Title II classification for broadband."
"The Biden Administration has said getting people online during the pandemic is a top priority, and if that's the case we need a real champ appointed to the FCC, ASAP--someone who isn't beholden to big telecom companies because they used to work for them. The last thing we need is some Democratic version of Ajit Pai," said Caitlin Seeley George (she/her), director of campaigns and operations at Fight for the Future. "A fully functional FCC will be able to ensure kids can keep learning without being forced to sit outside fast food restaurants, it will be able to start the process of reinstating net neutrality, and it will be able to stop greedy ISPs from imposing data caps and kicking people offline."
While the Biden administration has yet to announce a candidate for the fifth commissioner position, some of the names being floated include candidates with ties to the telecom industry. This is a major concern for the groups on Battle for the Net -- they highlight that the seat should not be filled by anyone with media or telecom industry history, to ensure they prioritise fighting for people instead of industry. The groups also highlight that it is critical the fifth commissioner supports the Title II classification for broadband access that was repealed by the Trump FCC, which was chaired by former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai. Critically, Title II classification provides the necessary legal authority for the FCC to ensure net neutrality and network reliability, expand affordability, and protect consumers against ISP abuses, including unfair data caps.
In the past, BattleForTheNet.com has hosted campaigns that have resulted in millions of actions in support of net neutrality, thousands of calls to legislators to pass the Save the Internet Act, and helped organize websites and companies around events like the historic 2014 Internet Slowdown Day of Action -- one of the biggest days of online activism ever.
Organizations participating in the current action to push the Biden administration to appoint an open Internet champion as the fifth commissioner to the FCC include:
- Fight for the Future
- Demand Progress
- Free Press Action
- American Family Voices
- California Clean Money Action Fund
- Center for Popular Democracy Action
- Common Cause
- Daily Kos
- Friends of the Earth Action
- MediaJustice
- OpenMedia
- Other98
- People For the American Way
- Presente Action
- Progress America
- Public Citizen
- RootsAction.org
- Social Security Works
- The Nation
- The Zero Hour
- United Church of Christ, OC Inc.
- Watchdog.net
- Win Without War
Demand Progress amplifies the voice of the people -- and wields it to make government accountable and contest concentrated corporate power. Our mission is to protect the democratic character of the internet -- and wield it to contest concentrated corporate power and hold government accountable.
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Marijuana Industry Banking Bill Passes Key Senate Panel
"We've got momentum on our side," said Sen. Jeff Merkley. "Let's get this done to protect our legal cannabis businesses!"
Sep 27, 2023
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday brought major federal marijuana banking legislation closer to becoming law than ever, approving a bipartisan bill that advocates say is essential to the safety of legal recreational and medical marijuana businesses across the United States.
The committee voted 14-9 in favor of passing the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, which would legally protect banks and credit unions that provide services to cannabis operations and prohibit federal regulators from ordering financial institutions to close a business' account based on "reputational risk."
An earlier version of the bill passed in the U.S. House numerous times but was never advanced in the Senate under either Democratic or Republican control.
"We've got momentum on our side to finally pass the SAFER Banking Act," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who is sponsoring the legislation along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). "Let's get this done to protect our legal cannabis businesses!"
Although 39 states have passed laws legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational or medical use, advocates say dispensaries are put at risk by a lack of federal protections for financial institutions that might otherwise work with them.
Only 12% of all U.S. banks and 5% of credit unions provide banking services to marijuana-related businesses, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
As Common Dreams reported, Mastercard announced in July that it would no longer offer services in the cannabis industry because marijuana is still criminalized at the federal level—even though annual national sales in the sector are projected to reach $57 billion by 2030 in states where cannabis is currently legalized.
NORML, which has advocated for marijuana decriminalization since 1970, noted on Wednesday that more than 70% of cannabis businesses report that a "lack of access to banking or investment capital" is their top challenge.
Without access to banking services, businesses are forced to make sales only in cash, which Merkley said is "an open invitation to robberies, muggings, money laundering, and organized crime."
"Forcing legal businesses to operate in all-cash is dangerous for our communities," said the senator.
NORML political director Morgan Fox called the newly advanced legislation "an improved version of the SAFE Banking Act."
"It allows state-licensed cannabis businesses to more easily access financial services, such as opening a simple bank account, and it provides entrepreneurs with greater access to lending and other services that are available to other legal businesses," said Fox.
Schumer called the passage of the bill out of the committee "a huge step," and said he is also working to include amendments to expunge people's marijuana-related criminal offenses in the final bill.
"Now is the time," said the senator.
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Supreme Court Could Trigger Hundreds of Billions in Corporate Tax Cuts 'With the Stroke of Pen'
A new report warns that huge tax gifts for corporations and "a $340 billion hole in the federal budget" are among the potential consequences of a case SCOTUS is set to hear in December.
Sep 27, 2023
A Washington-based married couple's challenge to an obscure provision of the 2017 Republican tax law has the potential to become "the most important tax case in a century," with far-reaching implications for federal revenues, key social programs, and Congress' constitutional authority to impose levies on income.
That's according to a new report released Wednesday by the Roosevelt Institute and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
The policy groups estimated that if the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs in Moore v. United States—which the justices are set to take up in December—nearly 400 multinational corporations could collectively receive more than $270 billion in tax relief, further enriching behemoths such as Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Google.
The Roosevelt Institute and ITEP also found that Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito own stock in 19 companies that are poised to receive a combined $30 billion in tax breaks if the judges strike down the 2017 law's mandatory repatriation tax, a one-time levy targeting earnings that multinational corporations had piled up overseas.
But the case could have impacts well beyond a repeal of the repatriation tax, which was projected to generate $340 billion in federal revenue over a decade.
Depending on the scope of the justices' decision, the new report argues, the Supreme Court could "suddenly supplant Congress as a major American tax policymaker, putting at legal jeopardy much of the architecture of laws that prevent corporations and individuals from avoiding taxes, and introducing great uncertainty about our democracy's ability to tax large corporations and the most affluent."
"At the best of times, blowing a $340 billion hole in the federal budget would be catastrophic," Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at ITEP and a co-author of the new report, said in a statement. "And if the court invalidates the transition tax in its Moore decision, that's exactly what would happen: possibly the costliest Supreme Court decision of all time. And it would be hard to identify a less deserving set of tax cut beneficiaries than the companies that would reap at least $271 billion from repealing this tax."
"The Roberts Court could decide with the stroke of a pen to simultaneously forgive big business decades of tax dues."
Charles and Kathleen Moore brought their challenge to the repatriation provision after they were hit with a roughly $15,000 tax bill stemming from their stake in an Indian farm equipment company. As the Tax Policy Center recently observed, the Indian firm is a "controlled foreign corporation (CFC), or a foreign corporation whose ownership or voting rights are more than 50% owned by U.S. persons who each own at least 10%."
The Moores' cause has been championed by billionaire-backed organizations and corporate lobbying groups, including the Manhattan Institute–which is chaired by billionaire hedge fund mogul Paul Singer—and the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"That such a case involving such modest sums would make it all the way to the high court indicates that there is much more at play than a single family's tax refund," ITEP's Gardner and Spandan Marasini and the Roosevelt Institute's Niko Lusiani note in the new report.
The plaintiffs' legal team argues that because the Moores' shares in the Indian firm were not "realized"—they did not sell or receive a distribution from the company—they should not have been on the hook for the repatriation tax.
"The government, on the other hand, argues that almost a century of tax law precedent has established Congress' broad authority to decide when and how to tax income, even without a specific realization event," the new report explains. "What's more, the income was clearly realized by the corporation, which is sufficient for income taxation of shareholders under various provisions of the existing tax code."
Our latest report with @rooseveltinst identifies 389 multinational corporations that would collectively be allocated $271 billion in tax relief, according to company estimates. The top five would receive a major share of the tax breaks. pic.twitter.com/wk5C5crGt2
— ITEP (@iteptweets) September 27, 2023
While it's possible that the Supreme Court will rule narrowly on the specifics of the Moores' situation, the report authors cautioned that the justices "could also issue a broad decision that taxing income—of an individual or a corporate shareholder—requires realization, and that income taxation on multiple years of accrued income is unconstitutional."
Such a sweeping ruling could preemptively ban a wealth tax—an outcome that right-wing supporters of the Moores have explicitly advocated.
"This case presents the court with an ideal opportunity to clarify that taxes on unrealized gains, such as wealth taxes, are direct taxes that are unconstitutional if not apportioned among the states," the Manhattan Institute declared in a May amicus brief.
A broad ruling by the high court could also imperil key elements of the existing tax code, according to ITEP and the Roosevelt Institute.
"One of the most established of these pillars is known as Subpart F, which was enacted in 1962 to prevent American corporations from avoiding taxation through offshore entities or controlled foreign corporations," the new report says. "Provisions related to Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI), the branch profits tax; tax treatment of corporate debt; and others could be uprooted by five justices."
"The Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax—enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act to create a basic corporate tax floor—as well as international efforts to curb international tax avoidance could be made constitutionally invalid," the report adds.
The analysis stresses that the consequences of a broad ruling in the upcoming case would be profound, affecting more than just a handful of corporate tax provisions.
"In Moore," the report warns, "the Roberts Court could decide with the stroke of a pen to simultaneously forgive big business decades of tax dues, increase the federal deficit over the long run, jeopardize future public revenue and essential social programs, escalate these multinational companies' already sizeable after-tax profits, and further enrich their shareholders."
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'One Job Should Be Enough!': Vegas Hospitality Workers Vote by 95% to Authorize Strike
"Companies are generating record profits and we demand that workers aren't left behind and have a fair share of that success," said one Culinary Union leader.
Sep 27, 2023
Members of two Nevada labor unions—including the state's largest—on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to authorize a citywide strike at 22 Las Vegas casinos, while continuing to negotiate a new contract "in good faith" with gaming companies.
Chanting "one job should be enough," tens of thousands of cocktail and food servers, bartenders, cooks, porters, and other non-gaming hotel employees in the Culinary Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165—affiliates of the Unite Here—packed the Thomas and Mack Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where they voted by 95% during two sessions to approve a work stoppage at Las Vegas Strip properties owned by MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn/Encore Resorts.
The affiliated unions—which represent 60,000 Nevada workers, including 53,000 in Las Vegas—can now call a strike at any time. It would be the first citywide strike in the resort industry in nearly 40 years.
Since September 15, 40,000 union members have been working under an expired contract. The Culinary Union said it remains in "active negotiations" with employers over a new five-year contract.
"Today, Culinary and Bartenders union members have sent the strongest message possible to the casino industry to settle a fair contract as soon as possible," Culinary Union secretary-treasurer Ted Pappageorge said in a statement. "We have negotiations scheduled next week with MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn/Encore Resorts and it's up to the three largest employers in Las Vegas to step up and do the right thing."
"If these gaming companies don't come to an agreement, the workers have spoken and we will be ready to do whatever it takes—up to and including a strike," Pappageorge added. "Companies are generating record profits and we demand that workers aren't left behind and have a fair share of that success."
Las Vegas set an all-time record for gaming revenue for the second straight year last year, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. The city's casino resorts reported $14.8 billion in 2022 revenue, a 10.5% increase over the previous year.
The unions' objectives include:
- Winning the largest wage increases ever negotiated in Culinary Union history;
- Reducing workload and steep housekeeping room quotas, mandating daily room cleaning, and establishing the right for guest room attendants to securely work in set areas;
- Providing the best on-the-job safety protections;
- Tracking sexual harassment, assault, and criminal behavior by customers;
- Ensuring advanced notification when new technology is introduced which would impact jobs and requiring training for new jobs created by technology;
- Guaranteeing healthcare and severance pay for workers who are laid off because of new technology; and
- Extending recall rights so that workers have more job security and have the right to return to their jobs in the event of another pandemic or economic crisis.
"I voted yes to authorize a strike because I'm fighting for my family and for our future," said Maria Sanchez, a Culinary Union member who works as a guest room attendant at the Bellagio. "The workload since the pandemic has been intense and when I get home I'm so tired and I don't have energy to take my two kids to the park or play with them. I feel sad like I'm just living to work and it's not right."
"I feel sad like I'm just living to work and it's not right."
"I was thinking about getting a second job, but I'm already doing more than one job at work right now and I believe that one job should be enough," she added. "I voted yes to win the best contract ever so that I can work one job and come home to spend time with my children."
In 2018, members of the Culinary and Bartenders unions voted to authorize a strike. A new contract was negotiated shortly after the vote, averting a work stoppage.
Last year, members of the Local 54 chapter of the Unite Here union—which represents hospitality industry employees in Atlantic City, New Jersey—negotiated new contracts that included the workers' largest-ever raise.
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