Tell Congress: Make Millionaires and Corporations Pay Their Fair Share

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama emphasized a vital point: that unfair, and even counter-productive, tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy shortchange needed investments for women and their families.

Tell your Members of Congress to make millionaires and corporations pay their fair share, to protect vital programs and to create jobs for the millions of struggling Americans who need them.

Instead of showering tax breaks on the wealthy, the oil and gas industry and on corporations that ship American jobs overseas, Congress needs to:

Protect vital programs: Women and their families depend on federal programs to protect their health, get quality child care, attend college, and meet their basic needs during difficult times and as they age. We need to protect vital programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, child care, Head Start, and Food Stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Create jobs: Unemployment remains painfully high, and while job growth has started to pick up, millions of women and men are still struggling to find jobs. We must extend federal emergency unemployment benefits to help people who are hurting now and invest in programs that put women and men back to work.

Tell Congress to make millionaires and corporations pay their fair share.

Middle-class and low-income families have already sacrificed enough. Budget deals have already scheduled $2 trillion in cuts to federal programs over the next decade that are important to everyday Americans. But they don't touch a penny of the tax breaks enjoyed by millionaire CEOs and booming industries like Big Oil. Congress should close tax loopholes and require millionaires, billionaires and large corporations to contribute to getting our economy back on track.

Last night, the President touched on many issues vital to women and their families: the health care law that guarantees that being a woman is NOT a preexisting condition, the need for fair pay for women, the importance of confirming judges to fill urgent vacancies on our courts, the need for kids (including pregnant and parenting students) to stay in school until they're 18, and much more.

With Congress soon to begin consideration of next year's federal budget, it's vital that our representatives know we're watching: they need to protect the interests of ALL Americans, not just the very wealthy.

Tell your Members of Congress to make millionaires and corporations pay their fair share, to protect vital programs and to create jobs for the millions of struggling Americans who need them.