With less than two weeks until Christmas, a coalition of progressive groups brought their wish list for the New Year to Senator Bill Nelson's district office in Tampa Thursday morning.
The list included supporting legislation that would close corporate loopholes, as well as two specific pieces of legislation that, according to an economic think tank, would result in the creation of over 3 million jobs nationwide and more than 170,000 in Florida.
[jump]But first Tim Heberlein with the Florida Consumer Action Network (FCAN) said he wanted to thank Nelson for his support of the just-announced bipartisan budget proposal that the House is voting on today. The bill doesn't touch liberal sacred cows like Social Security and Medicare.
The specific bills that FCAN and the other groups want Nelson to support include Senator Carl Levin's (D-Michigan)Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 1533), which raise $220 billion over 10 years by closing some tax loopholes that encourage corporations to shift profits, operations and jobs overseas.
Heberlein called on Nelson to also support a financial transaction tax, which some are dubbing "The Robin Hood Tax," since it aims to charge Wall Street investors a fraction of a penny for each stock trade that they make, based on the dollar value of the transactions. Over 160 local and national organizations support the measure, recently introduced by Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison, including the National Nurses United, Friends of the Earth, and National People's Action.
And the groups say they'd like Congress to pass The Fairness in Taxation Act, which would call on the very wealthy to pay "their fair share" by enacting tax brackets for income starting at $1 million and ending with a $1 billion bracket. That bill was introduced in the House in 2011 by Illinois Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky and has gotten little traction.
Also appearing at the press conference was the Reverend Russell Meyer the Florida Council of Churches. Speaking on the first relatively cold day in Tampa Bay this month, he began by saying that "There's a cold wind blowing into Tampa today and it's going to get really cold for a lot of Floridians when unemployment runs out on them."
That was a specific reference to the fact that unless Congress acts quickly, some 1.3 million workers will lose their extended jobless benefits on December 28. The budget agreement that the House will vote on today (the Senate takes it up next week) does not address the expiring Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.
The final speaker today was Savanah Goodland, a recent USF grad who has just begun working with Community Connect to help uninsured people get through the application process associated with the Affordable Care Act. She took her moment in the spotlight to lobby for members of the Florida Legislature to consider expanding Medicaid — a position supported by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, but one that still appears to lack the political juice to get through the GOP-led House anytime soon.
Other groups listed as participating in today's press conference included the Community Business Association, American Federation of State, City and Municipal Employees, Florida AFL-CIO and PICO.