Call To Action - April 25, 2021

4/25/2021

URGENT! Only 10 Slots Are Left for Tomorrow’s Washington State CALL-O-RAMA!

Can Olympia Indivisible be the people to fill those last slots?

All day Monday, people from Indivisible chapters from around our state are taking turns with non-stop calls to senators Murray and Cantwell to let them know how filibuster reform is absolutely crucial to our democracy.

Action:

Check the spreadsheet to see if you could fill one of the 5 minute slots left:
Then head over to see how easy it is to make your call by following the instructions and script.

Ask Senators Murray and Cantwell to Join Leading Dems in Urging Biden to Support the TRIPS Waiver

Brenton Geach / Gallo Images via Getty Images

Last October South Africa and India, requested that the WTO waive provisions in Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules thus allowing vaccines to be affordably produced or purchased by developing nations. More than 100 nations have joined them in their request as have 175 former world leaders and Nobel laureates. But, despite months of negotiations the proposal is being blocked by a hand full of the wealthiest nations in the world, such as the U.S., U.K., EU, Japan, Norway, Canada, Australia and Brazil; coincidentally the parent nations of the corporations that will make hundreds of billions in profits from these patents.

According to John Hopkins University the global death toll from COVID 19 is 3,103,353 with over 146 million cases reported, yet by mid-March at least 130 countries had not received a single dose of vaccine and by April fewer than 1% of people in the global South had been vaccinated.

This past Friday, Bernie Sanders and nine other leading Democratic Senators “joined more than a dozen public health, labor and faith organizations in delivering a petition with two million signatures to Biden demanding the U.S. drop its opposition to the TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization.” Senators Murray and Cantwell were not signatories to that letter.

According to an article in the Intercept “Newly filed disclosure forms from the first quarter of 2021 show that over 100 lobbyists have been mobilized to contact lawmakers and members of the Biden administration, urging them to oppose a proposed temporary waiver on intellectual property rights by the World Trade Organization that would allow generic vaccines to be produced globally.

The wealthy nations cannot manufacture vaccines fast enough for the demand, but if countries throughout the world could manufacture their own, that increase in production and distribution could make the difference in controlling this pandemic. The choice is between millions of people dying to protect the profits on a vaccine for which all the risks and costs were borne by us, the taxpayers, or waiving the rights and getting control of this pandemic by vaccinating the majority of the world. We cannot open the world to commerce or travel if the majority has not been vaccinated. Why should people die, why should businesses, small and large, suffer to enrich the pharmaceutical industry?

Action 1: Contact our WA Senators

Senator Patty Murray, Phone: 253-572-3636 or Contact Form
Senator Maria Cantwell, Phone: 253-572-2281 or Contact Form
- Email both your MOCs at once using Democracy.io.

Script: My name is _______ and I’m a member of Olympia Indivisible. I’m calling to implore our Senators to insist that President Biden make the morally correct choice, not the politically expedient one, and protect the people of the world by supporting South Africa and India’s proposal that the World Trade Organization waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. As a taxpayer who paid for Project Warp Speed, I want a world that’s safe for all of us, not one where people are allowed to die so that pharmaceutical companies can make billions in profits.

Action 2: Email the White House

Script: President Biden, I am asking you to make the morally correct choice, not the politically expedient one, and protect the people of the world by supporting South Africa and India’s proposal that the World Trade Organization waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. As a taxpayer who paid for Project Warp Speed, I want a world that’s safe for all of us, not one where people are allowed to die so that pharmaceutical companies can make billions in profits.

Fund and Rebuild the IRS Now. We Keep Asking… So Why No Action?

The IRS estimates that over 8 million low income, vulnerable Americans have been put on hold waiting to have their tax returns reviewed so they can finally receive their stimulus payments. They could be waiting for years.

Why is there such a backlog? Since Newt Gingrich was in power, the GOP has intentionally gutted IRS funding to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying their taxes. Today, corporations are audited HALF AS MUCH, and the super wealthy are audited 67% LESS than they were just ten years ago!

Now, as a share of the economy, federal revenue is at its lowest level in half a century.

You can read more about it here: Depletion of IRS Enforcement Is Undermining the Tax Code

Action: Our members of Congress must publicly speak out and insist on acting now.

Contact WA MOCs

Senator Patty Murray, Phone: 253-572-3636 or Contact Form
Senator Maria Cantwell, Phone: 253-572-2281 or Contact Form

Marilyn Strickland: 202-225-9740 or Contact Form
- Email all three MOCs at once using Democracy.io.

Script: My name is __________. As a member of Olympia indivisible, I am calling because I am outraged at how the IRS has intentionally been gutted for decades by the GOP. Tax avoidance by corporations and the wealthy is at an all time high.

It is urgent that Congress act now. We must restore funding to the IRS so they can enforce our tax laws, and Congress must strengthen those laws to stop tax gaming and cheating, particularly by corporations and the super wealthy.

We keep asking, so when will you act?

Provide Dental Health with Medicare

Seniors are struggling to afford dental health with the cost of a crown around $2,000 and other procedures going up from there. The overall health of an individual is tied into the person's dental health. There is House legislation and a Senate bill that proposed including dental health coverage into Medicare.

Action: Ask out MOC’s to support S97 and HR502.

Contact WA MOCs

Senator Patty Murray, Phone: 253-572-3636 or Contact Form
Senator Maria Cantwell, Phone: 253-572-2281 or Contact Form

Marilyn Strickland: 202-225-9740 or Contact Form
- Email all three MOCs at once using Democracy.io.

Script: My name is _______________ and I am a member of Olympia Indivisible. With all the struggles that seniors will eventually have with their health, dental coverage should be included in any health bills being proposed in order to provide complete health for a senior. Overall health is affected by a person's dental health. Please support bills S.97 - Medicare Dental Benefit Act of 2021 and H.R.502 - Medicare Dental Benefit Act of 2021.