June, 14 2024, 04:16pm EDT
Sunrise kicks off climate disaster response campaign
As experts predict a record-breaking summer of heat and hurricanes, Sunrise Movement leaders from around the country gathered yesterday on Zoom to get trained on planning protests in response to climate disasters. The protests, modeled after Sunrise’s actions in response to the Texas Freeze, will spotlight the role of fossil fuel companies in causing the climate crisis and demand action from politicians, from state and local officials to President Biden. Last week, Sunrise Phoenix kicked off the wave of protests by holding a die-in at City Hall, in reference to the record 645 people who died last year in Maricopa county from extreme heat.
“When climate disasters hit, the media puts our pain on the news, but not the cause,” said Sunrise Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay. “They let Big Oil and bought-out politicians oil off the hook. This year, that ends. The next time there is a wildfire, a flood, or a hurricane, Sunrise will be there to put the floodlights on the fossil fuel executives and corrupt politicians who put millions of lives at risk.”
The training included preparation on how best to respond to different types of disasters and put pressure on elected officials in the wake of disaster. Organizers plan to use these actions to continue urging President Biden to declare a climate emergency and using the full extent of his executive authorities to prepare communities for disaster. They also plan to focus attention on GOP Governors like Ron DeSantis, who recently banned municipalities from mandating water breaks for workers laboring outdoors in extreme heat.
“When the Texas Freeze happened and natural gas failed us, politicians like Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz gave us statements that could be summed up as ‘thoughts and prayers’ when what we really needed was a Green New Deal,” said Sunrise Campaign Director and Texan Kidus Girma . “We deserve a reliable grid, green union jobs, and a government owned by everyday people—not Big Oil . While Cruz fled to Cancun, Sunrisers across Texas practiced mutual aid and took direct action against gas billionaires like Jerry Jones. This year, we plan to do that tenfold.”
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
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Why Can't We Fund Universal Public Goods? Blame the Tax-Dodging Billionaire Nepo Babies
"In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta," reads a new report.
Dec 13, 2024
The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts described by one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.
But a report released by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) on Thursday shows how "billionaire nepo babies" don't just waste their families' fortunes. They also benefit from "a rigged system" that allows them to "pass that wealth down over generations without being properly taxed–often without being taxed at all."
In addition, the heirs of the country's biggest fortunes spend vast sums "to elect politicians who protect their unearned wealth and manipulate the country's economy in their favor," said ATF.
Along with Mellon and Koch, the report profiles Samuel Logan of the Scripps media dynasty; Nicola Peltz-Beckham, daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz; Gabrielle Rubenstein, whose family has made its fortune in private equity; and President-elect Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump.
The nepo babies are part of a small group of billionaire families in the U.S. who benefit from tax loopholes that ensure little of their immense wealth ever goes to benefit the public good.
At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.
But according to ATF, "$255 billion (56%) of that amount was likely entirely exempt from the capital gains tax because of a special break called 'stepped up basis.'"
"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."
Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.
The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.
Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.
A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.
As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.
"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
The report calls for Congress to pass "proven, pragmatic proposals to unrig the tax system that enjoy high levels of popular support," such as the Ultra Millionaire Tax Act that was proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) this year. The bill would tax fortunes between $50 million and $1 billion at 2% and wealth above $1 billion at $1 billion.
The small tax on enormous wealth would generate "a whopping $3 trillion over 10 years," said ATF.
The estate tax could also be "restored so that it can play a meaningful role in promoting fairness and equal opportunities" through the passage of the For the 99.5% Act, which was introduced in 2023 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).
Under the bill, the estate tax exemption would be lowered to $7 million per couple and the current 40% flat rate would be replaced with a sliding scale that would charge higher rates as a family's wealth grows.
"None of these tax reforms would impoverish the ultra wealthy, nor even inconvenience them in any meaningful way–but they would reduce the concentration of wealth that is so corrosive to society," reads the report. "At the same time, they would raise trillions of dollars that could be used to reduce inequality and improve the lives of families that can only dream of the kind of security and opportunity enjoyed by the nation’s richest clans."
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The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that members of Trump's transition team and the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency have asked nominees under consideration to head the FDIC and OCC if the bank watchdogs could be eliminated and have their functions absorbed by the Treasury Department, which is set to be run by a billionaire hedge fund manager and crypto enthusiast.
"Bank executives are optimistic President-elect Donald Trump will ease a host of regulations on capital cushions and consumer protections, as well as scrutiny of consolidation in the industry," the Journal reported. "But FDIC deposit insurance is considered near sacred. Any move that threatened to undermine even the perception of deposit insurance could quickly ripple through banks and in a crisis might compound customer fears."
The Trump team's internal and fluid discussions about the fate of the key bank regulators broadly aligns with Project 2025's proposal to "merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve's non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions."
The FDIC, which is primarily funded by bank insurance premiums, was established during the Great Depression to restore public trust in the nation's banking system, and the agency played a central role in navigating the 2023 bank failures that threatened a systemic crisis.
Observers warned that gutting the FDIC and OCC could catalyze another economic meltdown.
"The next recession starts here," tech journalist Jacob Silverman warned in response to the Journal's reporting.
Eric Rauchway, a historian of the New Deal, wrote that "even Milton Friedman appreciated the FDIC," underscoring the extreme nature of the incoming Trump administration's deregulatory ambitions.
Musk, the world's wealthiest man, is also pushing for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Journal noted Thursday that "Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky and Trump ally on the House Financial Services Committee, has backed the plan to eliminate or drastically alter the CFPB and said he wants to get rid of what he calls 'one-size-fits-all' regulation for banks."
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
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