Tell Congress: Support the Students Not Profits Act 2019

The petition to Congress reads: "Support the Students Not Profits Act of 2019 to make sure for-profit colleges don't get federal aid to exploit and undereducate students." Add your name:

For-profit colleges lie to students and leave them deeply in debt. They have been repeatedly caught promising a great education and career success in order to suck tuition dollars out of students and taxpayers. Some for-profit college campuses have gone as far as bribing local temp agencies to hire graduates for a day or two in order to artificially inflate “job placement” rates.1 But despite their grifter status, these colleges receive 15% of the total U.S. financial aid each year – and a third of them get almost all their revenue from federal sources.2For-profit colleges lie to students and leave them deeply in debt. They have been repeatedly caught promising a great education and career success in order to suck tuition dollars out of students and taxpayers. Some for-profit college campuses have gone as far as bribing local temp agencies to hire graduates for a day or two in order to artificially inflate “job placement” rates.1 Progressive champions Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Sherrod Brown want to put a stop to that. They recently introduced a bill, the Students Not Profits Act of 2019, that would cut off federal aid from for-profit colleges. Can you help build momentum for the bill today? Tell Congress: Pass the Students Not Profits Act. Click here to sign the petition. This crisis is even worse with Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education. News recently broke that her department gave almost $11 million to unaccredited art schools in Illinois and Colorado.3 She spent the last three years sabotaging the Obama-era Student Aid Enforcement Unit, a move seemingly designed to help give scam artists and predatory for-profit schools a free pass.4 It should be no surprise that a billionaire champion of school privatization would be siding with greedy corporations over students. DeVos clearly doesn't care that for-profit schools are responsible for 34% of student loan defaults, despite only enrolling 9% of post-secondary students.5 She doesn't care that students are going into massive debt for little to no employment reward. She just wants to help her billionaire buddies line their pockets. Luckily, Rep. Jayapal and Sen. Brown are pushing back. Their bill would end subsidies to for-profit schools and ensure that taxpayers stop paying for the exploitation of so many of our neighbors, family members and friends. We need to build momentum for the bill now. Can you click the link below to add your name today? https://act.credoaction.com/sign/Students-Not-Profits?t=9&akid=34648%2E3130208%2E5xROoM - Heidi Hess, CREDO Action  Add your name: References: Alan Pyke, "The Inside Story Of How A For-Profit College Hoodwinked Students And Got Away With It," ThinkProgress, Feb. 28, 2015. Annie Nova, "Bill would make for-profit colleges ineligible for federal student loans," CNBC, Oct. 23, 2019. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, "Trump administration let nearly $11 million in student aid go to unaccredited for-profit colleges," The Washington Post, Oct. 22, 2019. Danielle Ivory, Erica L. Green and Steve Eder, "Education Department Unwinds Unit Investigating Fraud at For-Profits," The New York Times, May 13, 2018. Americans for Financial Reform, "News Release: The Students Not Profits Act will protect public dollars from abuses at for-profit colleges," Oct. 17, 2019.

Tell your members of Congress: Support Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act

Petition to Congress: "Lower prescription drug prices and crack down on Big Pharma monopolies by supporting the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act." Add your name:

Trump is pushing the same old Republican strategy that led to unprecedented Big Pharma profits and Americans dying because they can't afford medicine: tax cuts and shredding safety rules. Democrats have a better answer. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, together with Sen. Sherrod Brown, just reintroduced an important bill to take on Big Pharma and let Medicare negotiate drug discounts.  Donald Trump made a huge deal out of allowing Medicare to negotiate deep discounts for prescription drugs. All it took was one meeting with Big Pharma executives to drop the act and reject the idea.1 The new Democratic House of Representatives is exposing Trump's scam-artist populism and laying out a real progressive vision. But it's up to us to generate the support to overcome opposition from corporate Democrats and put pressure on Republicans to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices. Resist Trump's Big Pharma scam. Tell Congress to let Medicare negotiate drug prices. Click here to sign the petition. Big Pharma repeatedly threatens to take medicine off the market if the government starts negotiating discounts. These callous threats are enough to make many Americans nervous. But the new Democratic bill has real teeth – if Big Pharma refuses to negotiate in good faith, the government could issue a license to a competitor to produce a generic version of the drug.2 Republicans have stubbornly defended their Big Pharma backers for years and prevented Medicare from even attempting to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. Trump made a lot of noise – and sent a few rambling tweets – but as always, when the going gets tough, Trump gets with the richest and most powerful. Nothing his regime has done would lower drug prices – Pfizer even announced price increases right as Trump was bragging about forthcoming price cuts.3 Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs of anywhere in the world. In fact, we not only pay high prices for desperately needed medication, but our tax dollars also pay for the research that makes Big Pharma so rich. No wonder permitting negotiation is so popular.4 This bill is what resistance to the Trump-Big Pharma alliance looks like. We need to give it our support in order to expose Trump's drug price hypocrisy and show that progressives have real solutions to the problems America faces. Resist Trump's Big Pharma scam. Tell Congress to let Medicare negotiate drug prices. Click below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/medicare-drug-negotiation?t=9&akid=31808%2E3130208%2EaXX0zd - Josh Nelson, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Matthew Yglesias, "After meeting with pharma lobbyists, Trump drops promise to negotiate drug prices," Vox, Jan. 31, 2017. Nancy Altman, "Democrats have a Medicare negotiation plan that terrifies Big Pharma," The Hill, July 30, 2018. Ibid. Dylan Scott, "Donald Trump’s phony war on high prescription drug prices, explained," Vox, July 13, 2018.

Tell Congress: Bring back overtime pay.

Petition to Congress: "Expand overtime pay and restore overtime protections to the millions of workers hurt by the Trump administration and conservative business lawsuits. Support the Restoring Overtime Pay Act." Add your name:

Donald Trump and his big business cronies have cost American workers more than $646 million in overtime pay.1 One of the biggest achievements of the Obama administration was new, modernized overtime rules that would have produced new eligibility for overtime or more take-home pay for 12.5 million Americans. But conservative business interests sued to stop the rule and the Trump administration has abandoned the fight – costing workers more than $3 million in wages each and every day since last summer.2 Progressive champion Rep. Mark Takano and Sens. Sherrod Brown and Patty Murray have introduced a bill that would give legislative force to the Obama administration rules.3 Every bit of support for this fix exposes Trump's hypocrisy and shines a spotlight on the way he is hurting working people. Tell Congress: Trump is costing workers overtime pay. Pass legislation to expand overtime. Click here to sign the petition. Donald Trump's Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta made the Trump position very clear: he said paying people for their labor would “create a stress on the system.”4 No wonder the Trump administration quit when conservative business interests won a stay in the rule from a federal judge who is now considering proposing a far weaker version. Between 1975 and today the number of salaried employees who received overtime pay for working 40+ hours a week dropped from 65 percent to 11 percent.5 If the threshold had risen with inflation it would be around $58,000 today, and a threshold that once more covered 65 percent of the workforce would have to be $69,000.6 The old overtime pay threshold, $23,660, in contrast, is below the poverty level for a family of four.7 On top of it all, businesses routinely use loopholes to deny employees pay: Some fast food companies call workers 'managers' to exempt them from overtime pay even while they work 60 or more hours a week and spend 95 percent of their time at the register or sweeping floors.8 The Restoring Overtime Pay Act would take the carefully constructed Obama overtime rule and make it law – closing loopholes and setting an overtime threshold of $47,476. It's such a measured step that opposing it openly exposes Trump and Republicans as the party of greedy executives. We need to make sure Congress knows how much Trump has already cost us. Tell Congress: Trump is costing workers overtime pay. Pass legislation to expand overtime. Click below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/restoring_overtime_act?t=7&akid=28646%2E3130208%2ER9wLa4 - Josh Nelson, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Center for American Progress, "Tracking the Cost of Trump’s Overtime Pay Cut," Dec. 20, 2017. Ibid. Sen. Sherrod Brown, "Brown, Murray, Scott, Takano Introduce Bill to Expand Overtime Pay for Millions of Workers," Nov. 30, 2017. Amy Held, “Labor Department Rethinking Obama-Era Overtime Pay Rule,” NPR, June 27, 2017. Rep. Mark Takano, “Rep. Mark Takano and 31 House Democrats Call for Expanded Overtime Pay,” January 19, 2015. Dave Jamieson, “Obama Is Bringing Overtime Pay To Millions Of Workers,” HuffPost, May 17, 2016. Ross Eisenbrey, “Where Should the Overtime Salary Threshold Be Set? A Comparison of Four Proposals to Increase Overtime Coverage,” Economic Policy Institute, Dec. 23, 2014. Economic Policy Institute, “Why It’s Time to Update Overtime Pay Rules: Frequently Asked Questions,” Aug. 4, 2015.