May, 27 2021, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Chris Fleming,Email:,chris@redhorsestrategies.com
GOP Infrastructure Plan Ignores Needs, Gives Rich & Corporations a Free Pass
Instead of closing loopholes & making corporations pay their fair share, gop seeks to drain off pandemic relief funds.
WASHINGTON
West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito and her Senate Republican colleagues today unveiled their infrastructure counteroffer, which ignores vital community needs like housing, hospital and school construction and gives corporations who aren't paying their fair share of taxes a free pass. Capito's claimed $928 billion plan is actually just $257 billion in new investments beyond what Congress has already authorized. It would do far less for West Virginia and the country than President Biden's $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan. Moreover, the GOP plan would siphon off hundreds of billions of dollars currently earmarked for COVID relief and recovery even as the country takes its first tentative steps forward post-pandemic.
"The anemic infrastructure plan from Sen. Capito and Senate Republicans will do far less for the working families of West Virginia and all across America than the Biden jobs plan will do," said Frank Clemente, Americans for Tax Fairness Executive Director. "To pay for their infrastructure plan, the GOP wants to slash pandemic relief funds that are benefiting millions of families and communities instead of closing tax loopholes to make corporations pay their fair share."
For now, Republicans seem to have backed off plans for higher gas taxes and other "user fees" that slam commuters and working families. This has been the GOP's preferred way to pay for new infrastructure. Their new-found caution is most likely a temporary negotiating tactic that reflects how strongly the public objects to the GOP's preference to make working families pay as opposed to wealthy corporations.
In stark contrast, Biden's jobs and infrastructure plan is fully paid for by making corporations contribute their fair share. Fifty-five of America's biggest corporations paid no federal income taxes last year, and the wealth of just 650 billionaires rose by 50% during the pandemic, all while millions of working Americans suffered. Numerous polls show strong support for the President's preferred way to finance his bold new jobs and infrastructure plan, which will create millions of good-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, investing in clean energy, strengthening American manufacturing, and providing relief to millions of working families who are the backbone of our economy by helping them care for their elderly loved ones.
"The Biden jobs plan will rebuild America while eliminating tax breaks that encourage corporations to outsource jobs and shift profits to offshore tax havens," added Clemente "It will invest in strengthening American manufacturing, helping to keep and create more American jobs here at home. The Biden jobs plan will help small businesses recover and compete with big corporations. It will close loopholes that allow big corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and provide more support to small businesses to get them back on their feet and hire more workers."
Huge corporations are some of the biggest users of U.S. infrastructure: they use our highways, ports, and airports to move their goods; rely on public schools to provide an educated workforce; and depend on the caring economy to ensure their employees with disabled or elderly relatives can focus on their work.
Corporations have enjoyed record profits and stock prices in recent years, yet they were handed a 40% tax cut in 2017. A government survey of over 1,500 U.S.-based multinational firms found that for 2018, they paid an average U.S. tax rate of just 7.8%.
Among the Biden initiatives that the GOP plan leaves out, as shown in this ATF fact sheet, are funds to build desperately needed housing, schools and VA hospitals and tax credits to encourage purchase of non-polluting electric vehicles. These vital investments were excluded even though they involve physical structures the GOP claims are the proper definition of "infrastructure." The Republican plan also fails to provide for the kind of investments Biden proposes to revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains, invest in R&D, and train Americans for the jobs of the future. The GOP plan also does not support social infrastructure that's just as important in our modern society as highways and bridges. Recognizing that, Biden would invest $400 billion to make sure our most vulnerable citizens, including people with disabilities, receive proper care and their relatives achieve peace of mind.
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.
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'Killing Is Normalized': IDF Soldier Speaks Out About Orders to Shoot Civilians in Gaza
The commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die," the soldier said. "If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is."
Jul 07, 2025
Another Israel Defense Forces soldier has spoken out publicly against the IDF's brutalization of civilians in Gaza.
In an interview with the British Sky News Monday, a reservist who has served three tours of duty in Gaza spoke candidly about orders he and other soldiers received to shoot any person arbitrarily who entered defined "no-go zones," regardless of whether they posed a threat.
The soldier gave his testimony anonymously for fear of being labeled a "traitor." However, he identified himself as a reservist from the 252nd Division who was stationed at the Netzarim Corridor, a road which divides North and South Gaza.
The area has been one of the most critical strategic points for Israel's occupation of Gaza, allowing control over the flow of aid and people.
The soldiers, stationed on the edge of a civilian neighborhood in the homes of displaced Palestinians, were ordered by their commanders to kill anyone who passed an "imaginary line" that marked the beginning of the military stronghold, the soldier said.
"We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die," the soldier said. "If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is."
"It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle," he said.
The soldier said that the prevailing attitude among the troops was that all Palestinians were "terrorists," and that this attitude was reinforced by commanders.
"They say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn't be there, and if he still comes, it means he's a terrorist," he said. "This is what they tell you. But I don't really think it's true. It's just poor people, civilians, that don't really have too many choices."
He said that when soldiers in the corridor kill civilians, a lot of them "think that they did something good."
That sense of impunity, he said, comes from the higher-ups.
"Some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don't face the consequences of that," he said.
"You can't be in this scenario for so long and not normalize it," he said. "Killing is normalized, and you don't see the problem."
This anonymous soldier is the latest of many who have decided to speak out against atrocities their military has committed.
His testimony comes on the heels of a harrowing Haaretz expose, in which several other Israeli soldiers described being ordered to shoot Palestinian aid-seekers, turning the U.S.-Israeli administered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites into "killing fields." Others provided The Associated Press with video of soldiers bombarding civilians in an aid site with pepper spray and stun grenades.
Others have spoken out against the attacks on civilians near the Israeli stronghold at Netzarim.
In April, a report by the Israeli veterans group Breaking the Silence detailed many more accounts of brutality over the first year-and-a-half of the war. It included accounts of Israeli soldiers razing agricultural land, bulldozing entire city blocks, and designating "large swathes of the land" that "were turned into massive kill zones."
"All of them were wiped off the face of the Earth. Annihilation, expropriation, and expulsion are immoral and must never be normalized or legitimized," the report said.
The soldier who spoke to Sky News said his deployment left a similar stain on his conscience.
"I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country," he said. "I think the war is... a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over."
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Oxfam Says Russian Use of Chemical Weapons in Ukraine Would Be 'Egregious Violation of International law'
"The increasing erosion of the rule of law is deeply concerning," said an Oxfam campaigns manager.
Jul 07, 2025
Anti-poverty organization Oxfam on Monday expressed grave concern over reports that Russia has been increasingly deploying chemical weapons in Ukraine.
The Associated Press reported late last week that two Dutch intelligence agencies are claiming that Russia has been ramping up its use of chemical weapons in its war against Ukraine. Among the chemical weapons allegedly being deployed by Russia are chloropicrin, a banned poison gas that was used by European powers during World War I, and CS gas, which is typically used as a riot control agent.
Sarah Redd, Oxfam's advocacy and campaigns manager in Ukraine, called reports of banned chemical weapons use deeply troubling and called for a full investigation into the matter.
"Oxfam is appalled at the recent intensification of violence against civilians in Ukraine, especially the reports of Russia's use of chemical weapons, which would be an egregious violation of international law," she said. "The increasing erosion of the rule of law is deeply concerning. Such laws were put in place to prevent humanity from sliding back into a darker chapter of history. Oxfam calls for an immediate and independent international investigation into these allegations and to hold those responsible to account."
Russia is a signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty first drafted and enacted in the 1990s that bars the use of both chloropicrin and CS gas in war. This makes Russia subject to potential investigations carried out by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, although such an investigation can only take place if requested by member states.
Ukraine has claimed that Russia has carried out more than 9,000 chemical weapons attacks ever since it launched its invasion of the country more than three years ago. During the 2024 election campaign, President Donald Trump claimed that he could bring an end to the Ukraine-Russia war within a single day although so far fighting between the two nations has only intensified.
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'Indefensible': Trump Budget Law Subsidizes Private Jet Owners While Taking Healthcare From Millions
A provision of the budget law that President Donald Trump signed last week will leave taxpayers to "pick up the tab for the private jet industry and billionaire high flyers."
Jul 07, 2025
The Republican budget measure that U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law late last week contains a provision that analysts say will allow private jet owners to write off the full cost of their aircraft in the first year of purchase, a boon to the ultra-rich that comes as millions of people are set to lose healthcare under the same legislation.
FlyUSA, a private aviation provider, gushed in a blog post that with final passage of the unpopular budget reconciliation package, "business jet ownership has never looked more fiscally attractive or more fun to explain to your accountant."
The law, crafted by congressional Republicans and approved with only GOP support, permanently restores a major corporate tax break known as 100% bonus depreciation, which allows businesses to deduct the costs of certain assets in the first year of purchase rather than writing them off over time.
Forbes noted that the bonus depreciation policy "applies to a slew of qualified, physical business expenses which depreciate over time, such as machinery and company cars, but the policy is often associated with big-ticket luxury items, such as private aircraft, and its institution last decade led to a boom in jet sales."
"Trump and congressional Republicans have certainly delivered for the billionaire class."
Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, called bonus depreciation "a massive tax break for billionaires and centi-millionaires that use the most polluting form of transportation on the planet."
"A corporation purchasing a $50 million private jet could potentially deduct the entire $50 million from their taxes in the year of the purchase, rather than spreading the deduction over many years," Collins wrote. "This amounts to a massive taxpayer subsidy, as ordinary taxpayers pick up the tab for the private jet industry and billionaire high flyers."
"Subsidizing more private jets on a warming planet is reckless and indefensible," he added.
The National Business Aviation Association, a lobbying group for the private aviation industry, celebrated passage of the Republican legislation, specifically welcoming the bonus depreciation policy as "effective for incentivizing aircraft purchase." (The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy argues that "depreciation tax breaks have never been shown to encourage more capital investment.")
Meanwhile, communities across the United States are bracing for the law's deep cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, which are expected to impose damaging strains on state budgets and strip food benefits and health coverage from millions of low-income Americans.
"Trump and congressional Republicans have certainly delivered for the billionaire class," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. "This is certainly one of the cruelest bills in American history, backtracking on the country's painfully slow history of expanding healthcare coverage and, equally remarkably, taking food away from the hungry."
"That's a lot of needless suffering just to make the richest Americans richer," he added.
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