skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Wealthy Americans Encourage Congress to Raise Their Tax Rate

play audio
Play

Friday, September 17, 2021   

PORTLAND, Ore. - Wealthy Americans have a message for Congress: Tax us more.

More than 200 high-income taxpayers and business owners have sent an open letter urging elected leaders to raise the tax rate for rich people to fund the infrastructure plan now being debated in Congress. Three of the signers are from Oregon, including Sandy Polishuk, a retired artist and activist living in Portland. She said the country's wealth disparity is apparent when she walks around her city.

"I think we're in a new gilded age," she said, "and like back then in the 19th century, it's ruining our country and our world to have such vast wealth and vast poverty."

A coalition of progressive groups organized the letter. The groups want Congress to raise the top marginal income-tax rate to 39.6%, reversing the Trump-era tax cut passed in 2017. Signers also want Congress to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, close loopholes on estate taxes, and start taxing capital gains as ordinary income.

Sandra Fluke, president of the nonprofit Voices for Progress, said the money would help fund President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion infrastructure package.

"Child-care affordability, and home- and community-based care, and paid leave, fighting climate change and protecting all of us from natural disasters are good investments," she said, "investments that will help to rebuild our economy and to strengthen our democracy."

The letter also calls on Congress to restore full funding to the IRS, which has lost one-third of its employees in enforcement roles in recent years - resulting in close to a 60% drop in the number of audits it performs.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

Health and Wellness

play sound

Medicare and Medicaid are key sources of health coverage for many Americans and some people qualify for assistance under both programs. With lagging …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021