June, 20 2017, 11:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Chris Fleming,Email:,chris@redhorsestrategies.com
Statement on Paul Ryan's Speech Today on Tax Reform
WASHINGTON
Paul Ryan is delivering a "major speech" on taxes today at the National Association of Manufacturers conference.
We're not expecting to hear anything we haven't heard before. Here's a statement from our executive director Frank Clemente:
"Paul Ryan is not serious about tax reform. He's serious about tax giveaways - for millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations. He's going to pay for those deficit-exploding giveaways by cutting Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, public education, and a whole lot more. Middle-class Americans will see their basic standards of living reduced by Ryan's plans, just so that the rich and huge corporations can get a giant tax cut."When Paul Ryan wants to get serious about tax reform, he should listen to what the American people want. People want giant corporations that are stashing their profits offshore to pay what they owe, they want to end big loopholes for Big Oil and Big Pharma, and they want millionaires to pay their fair share."
On Monday, Americans for Tax Fairness prepared a memo discussing the lessons that Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and Congressional Republicans should learn from Kansas's failed tax cut experiment. Read that memo here: (PDF)
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.
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How the GOP Spending Bill Would 'Hand a Blank Check to Elon Musk'
One top Democrat called the seven-month continuing resolution a "power grab" that "further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
Mar 10, 2025
House Republicans this week are aiming to pass a seven-month government funding bill that Democrats said would effectively preempt any congressional effort to rein in billionaire Elon Musk as he works in concert with President Donald Trump to eviscerate federal agencies and fire government employees en masse.
The continuing resolution (CR), which would avert a looming shutdown and keep the government funded through September, calls for increasing military spending while cutting or declining to fund key programs involving rental assistance, public health, and other critical areas.
Politicoreported that the bill would boost military spending by roughly $6 billion and slash non-military funding by $13 billion.
"The bill, for instance, does not renew $40 million in fiscal 2024 funding for more than 70 programs that help children and families," the outlet noted. "Most had been requested by Democratic senators, but not all: Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith previously secured $250,000 for a group that works to prevent child abuse in her home state of Mississippi and GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski requested more than $5 million to help fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse in Alaska."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the legislation "is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
DeLauro continued:
By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire. Elon Musk and President Trump are stealing from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farms to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. They have made it harder for Americans to get their Social Security benefits; shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved American families $21 billion; fired 6,000 veterans and reportedly plan to make it harder for veterans to access benefits by firing an additional 80,000 VA employees; laid off hundreds of workers who build and maintain critical nuclear weapons; and shut down medical research labs. House Republicans' response: hand a blank check to Elon Musk.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, echoed DeLauro's criticism of the Republican bill, calling it a "slush fund continuing resolution that would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending—and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike."
"Instead of turning the keys over to the Trump administration with this bill," said Murray, "Congress should immediately pass a short-term CR to prevent a shutdown and finish work on bipartisan funding bills that invest in families, keep America safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent."
In a fact sheet released over the weekend, Murray's office noted that full-year government funding bills typically provide "scores of specific funding directives for key programs and priorities" that constrain the executive branch.
But under the GOP continuing resolution, the fact sheet observes, "hundreds of those congressional directives fall away," giving the Trump administration broad discretion to "reshape spending priorities, eliminate longstanding programs, pick winners and losers, and more."
"Under this CR, the Trump administration could—for example—decide not to spend funding previously allocated for combatting fentanyl, the SUPPORT Act, and other substance abuse and mental health programs, or specific NIH priorities like Alzheimer's disease and vaccine research—and instead steer funding to other priorities of its choosing," the document states. "It could also pick and choose which Military Construction, Army Corps, or transit improvement and expansion projects to fund without direction from Congress."
A similar fact sheet released by DeLauro warns that the CR "provides a blank check to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the amount of $4 billion, enabling Elon Musk to direct contracts to Starlink and SpaceX (companies owned by Musk) at a time when unvetted and unchecked SpaceX employees have burrowed in the FAA (the same Federal agency that regulates SpaceX), with no requirement for public transparency, fair competition, or congressional approval."
"This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires," said DeLauro.
The Republican bill is expected to get a House vote as soon as Tuesday evening. In a post to his social media platform on Saturday, Trump praised the CR as "very good" and demanded lockstep unity from his party, which has willfully ceded the power of the purse in the opening weeks of the president's second White House term.
Trump's call for "no dissent" from Republicans stems from the party's narrow majorities in the House and Senate. In the latter chamber, the bill will need at least seven Democratic votes to pass.
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ICE Arrests Palestinian Green Card Holder Who Helped Lead Columbia's Gaza Solidarity Camp
"The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder whose wife is eight months pregnant—is a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Federal agents on Saturday arrested a prominent Palestinian activist and permanent U.S. resident who says the arresting officers told him his green card had been revoked.
Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, who is eight months pregnant, were returning home at around 8:30 pm Saturday when plainclothes Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents "pushed in behind them," advocates for Khalil
toldZeteo's Prem Thakker. Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer, said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents also threatened to arrest his wife.
Last week, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas. This, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Clearly Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system," Khalil toldReuters Saturday before his arrest.
Thakker reported:
The agents claimed that the State Department had revoked Khalil's student visa, with one agent presenting what he claimed was a warrant on his cell phone. But Khalil, according to advocates, has a green card. Khalil's wife went to their apartment to get the green card.
"He has a green card," an agent apparently said on the phone, confused by the matter. But then after a moment, the agent claimed that the State Department had "revoked that too."
Experts said that revoking a green card is very rare and typically only occurs when a permanent resident has committed a serious crime, engages in immigration fraud, or clearly demonstrates intent to abandon their status.
"This has the appearance of a retaliatory action against someone who expressed an opinion the Trump administration didn't like," Camille Mackler, founder of Immigrant ARC, a coalition of New York legal service providers, toldHuffpost.
Khalil graduated in December with a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He was also a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which drew international attention as Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and annihilated much of their homeland. Khalil was briefly suspended last spring for his protest activities.
Elora Mukherjee, director of the immigrants' rights clinic at Columbia Law School, toldThe New York Times that if the Trump administration revoked Khalil's green card "in retaliation for his public speech, that is prohibited by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said late Sunday that Khalil was arrested "in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
"Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization," McLaughlin added. "ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump's executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security."
However, Greer said that "we will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud's rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable—and calculated—wrong committed against him."
Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement that "this blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America."
The Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers, which represents more than 3,000 graduate and undergraduate student workers, urged Columbia staff and students to oppose the school's "cooperation with the Trump administration."
“By allowing ICE on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration's assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances," the union said in a statement.
Last week, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia, claiming the school—which cracked down hard on Gaza protesters—hasn't done enough to combat antisemitism.
The Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) coalition noted that "Columbia University has published guidance on how best to collaborate with federal enforcement, including advising faculty and staff 'not to interfere' with ICE agents even if those agents are unable to present a warrant."
"Columbia's continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible."
"Columbia's continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible," WAWOG argued.
"A Palestinian student and member of the community has been abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges," the coalition continued. "Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various Zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission."
"This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others," WAWOG added.
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As Israel Pulls Plug on Gaza, Smotrich Says Trump's Ethnic Cleansing Plan 'Taking Shape'
"By openly trying to starve and freeze an entire civilian population to death, the far-right government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has once again clearly demonstrated its genocidal intent in Gaza," said CAIR.
Mar 09, 2025
Israel's finance minister said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is proceeding, remarks that came on the same day as Israel completely cut off electricity from the last receiving facility in the obliterated Palestinian enclave.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism party told fellow Knesset lawmakers that "this plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination" with the Trump administration.
Smotrich said that he is working with Cabinet members including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to establish a "migration administration" that will oversee the removal of an indeterminate number of Gaza's approximately 2.1 million people, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel during the modern Jewish state's founding in 1948.
While Smotrich insisted that Palestinian removal would be "voluntary," it is highly questionable whether many Palestinians would leave what remains of their homeland of their own free will, or what kind of incentives it would take to convince them to go.
Last month, Trump—who on Wednesday threatened to kill everyone in Gaza unless Hamas handed over the dozens of remaining Israeli and other hostages it has held for over 500 days—vowed that the U.S. would "own" Gaza.
U.S. developers, the president said, will "level" Gaza and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" there after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave. Asked if his plan involved sending U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump replied, "If it's necessary, we'll do that."
Forced removal of people by an occupying power is a war crime according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which Israel's apartheid settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are also illegal.
Smotrich said Sunday that the so-called Trump Plan "involves identifying key countries, understanding their interests—both with the U.S. and with us—and fostering cooperation."
"Just to give you an idea—if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months," Smotrich said. "If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes."
Leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, where Trump has proposed sending Gazans, vehemently oppose the plan. A counterproposal issued by Egypt and other Arab nations—which involves rebuilding Gaza without forcibly displacing its residents—has the support of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and nations including China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.
Smotrich's remarks came on the same day that Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that he "just signed an order for the immediate halt of electricity to the Gaza Strip" as part of a policy to use "all of the tools that are at our disposal to ensure the return of all the hostages."
Smotrich weighed in on the power cut, arguing that "the Gaza Strip must be completely and immediately blacked out as long as even one Israeli hostage is being held there."
Israeli officials believe 24 hostages are still alive in Gaza, including 22 Israelis, one Thai, and one Nepali. The bodies of 35 hostages who died or were killed after their abduction are also being held in Gaza.
"Israel must bomb the huge fuel depots that entered the strip as part of the unfortunate deal, as well as the generators operated by Hamas," Smotrich said, referring to the crumbling cease-fire that went into effect on January 19. Israel stands accused of nearly 1,000 violations of the truce.
In recent days, renewed but limited Israeli airstrikes and statements from Israeli leaders about resuming a full assault on Gaza have further imperiled the shaky cease-fire.
Electricity was first cut off to Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a "complete siege" of the coastal strip. The ongoing blockade has fueled deadly starvation, disease, and exposure.
Along with Israel's bombardment and invasion—which have left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed or missing in Gaza—the siege is cited in the South Africa-led genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu and Gallant are also wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri is also a fugitive from the ICC.
Humanitarian groups warned that the suspension of electricity to Gaza could force the shutdown of the strip's two functioning desalination plants, reducing the already scarce supply of fresh water.
However, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said Sunday that the electricity cutoff probably wouldn't have much impact, given the existing siege. But Qassem still called the move "behavior that confirms the occupation's intent to continue its genocidal war against Gaza, through the use of starvation policies, in clear disregard for all international laws and norms."
Hamas further slammed the Israeli move as "cheap and unacceptable blackmail."
In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned what it called "Israel's latest act of genocide in Gaza."
"By openly trying to starve and freeze an entire civilian population to death, the far-right government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has once again clearly demonstrated its genocidal intent in Gaza," CAIR said in a statement. "Banning food, water, fuel, medical supplies—and now electricity—threatens the lives of everyone in Gaza."
"The United States and other western nations must stop treating Palestinians as less than human and stop giving this one government impunity as it flagrantly violates international law," the group added.
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