Head to West Virginia this weekend if you’re looking for a cheap and tasty meal and an opportunity to tell lawmakers to stop protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and instead focus on fixing the nation’s job crisis.
The West Virginia AFL-CIO and allied groups are holding 10 “Help the Really Rich Hot Dog Sales” around the Mountain State Saturday and Sunday. In honor of the 76th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s signing of the Social Security Act, the dogs will go for just 5 cents each—don’t know if chili and slaw are extra.
Larry Matheney, secretary-treasurer of the West Virginia AFL-CIO, says the sales will promote
a tongue-in-cheek solution to raising revenue without asking the really rich or tax-dodging corporations to pay their fair share of taxes… reducing the debt one hot dog a time.
The proceeds will be turned into the “U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt.”
Elsewhere around nation grassroots, community, faith and other groups, including the AFL-CIO union movement, are turning the long congressional recess into a summer of accountability. At townhall meetings, rallies and other events, working families and their allies are holding politicians accountable for their support of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and for not working to strengthen the economy and create jobs.
In Colorado Springs, activists gathered outside the office of Rep. Doug Lambron’s (R-Colo.) to tell Lambron—who some conservative organizations call the “most conservative man in America”— that the nation needs jobs, not tax breaks for millionaires or huge cuts to vital working family programs.
At the Lincoln townhall meeting of Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns (R), the room was packed. As the Lincoln Journal Star reports:
Emotions spilled over during the hour-long session, which sharply veered away from the typical calm of a Johanns town hall. Many of the loudest voices and waving fingers urged Johanns to include tax increases—particularly applied to the wealthiest Americans—as part of the solution to debt reduction.
Jennifer Wendelin told Johanns that additional revenue must be part of the debt reduction solution along with spending cuts.
Big corporations and the rich have to pay their fair share. If we have to bite the bullet, they do, too. We can’t be forced to shoulder the entire burden.
Dozens of people gathered outside Rep. Steve Chabot’s (R) office in downtown Cincinnati to ask him what he intends to do about the tens of thousands of area jobs that have disappeared. Chabot and his staff didn’t bother to meet with the crowd, which included several unemployed workers. Jason Riveiro told WKRC TV:
They campaign on message of creating jobs and bringing America back to glory, yet we are not seeing that happen. In fact, we see benefits go to top 2 percent of country.
