In 2020, people of all parties rushed to the polls for relief from the Trump administration’s botched pandemic response. President Biden delivered: millions of Americans are now vaccinated, briefings now come from people who actually know what they are talking about, and the government takes seriously the advice of both pandemic and economic experts.
And in March 2021, Senate Democrats also passed the American Rescue Plan (ARP)—with no Republican votes.
The ARP disproved the old Republican trickle-down lie, demonstrating that truly democratic economic policies aimed at improving the lives of all Americans are the only thing that works. Democrats knew that providing relief focused on rebuilding from the bottom up would revive our entire economy. That’s exactly what happened. In Biden’s first year, the GDP grew at 5.7%, the fastest rate in more than 40 years (it never rose above 3% under Trump). Consumer spending soared 7.9%. The unemployment rate fell and 6 million new jobs were created.
Unfortunately, the American people aren’t convinced that things are improving. Polling indicates that while voters think their individual lives are better, they think the country as a whole isn’t doing that well. Could that be because the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ early jobs reports have been inaccurately low, month after month? Or could it be that we’re still waiting on the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), paid for by getting the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, to build on the ARP’s successes? And could both of those be because two high-ranking officials are Trump holdovers with prior credentials in Republican administrations?
The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was previously a staff economist for Senate Republicans, keeps releasing jobs reports that understate the true health of the job market and have to be corrected later. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), who was an economist back in the George W. Bush administration, asserted publicly during congressional negotiations over the BBBA that the legislation had overestimated how much additional revenue the IRS could bring in if it was beefed up to crack down on tax cheats. Both of these official positions are traditionally nonpartisan, but the people who currently hold them are behaving in suspiciously partisan ways.
Contact the White House and tell them: replace the Trump-aligned heads of CBO and BLS!
Still Awaiting Justice: US National Security
Last week Trump-Barr Special Counsel John Durham filed a document suggesting that Democrats spied on Trump’s 2016 campaign. At the same time, we learned more information about the contents of 15 boxes of documents the former president took with him when he left the White House. They apparently contained unique archival material, like the Sharpie weather map, as well as top secret classified materials. This is a lot more urgent than disproved allegations about a Democratic attorney seeking ties between Trump and Russia.
Please join us in contacting Attorney General Garland to demand that the Department of Justice prosecute the previous president’s theft of classified materials to the fullest extent of the law.
Start writing letters to get out the midterm vote!
Vote Forward has announced its first letter-writing campaigns of this year’s midterm election, so if you’re ready to start getting out the vote, sign up now to start writing letters that will go out on October 29. Writing to voters is a proven strategy for direct voter outreach, which is critical for maximizing voter turnout. You can do it easily and safely from home, either by yourself or with friends in a small Zoom party.
If you’ve never written letters to voters through Vote Forward, it’s easy. You’ll need a printer, plain letter paper, #10 envelopes, First Class letter stamps (not postcard stamps!), and a pen. Once you sign up on the website, it’s fast and simple to request batches of names and addresses to write to. The letters are mostly pre-written, with a couple of blanks for you to fill in, and Vote Forward provides detailed guidance on what to write there (and what not to) and what to do with the letters after you’ve completed them.
The more letters we send, the more voters we’ll turn out in the midterms. Sign up now!
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If you’re interested in participating in activities like drafting letters to our Members of Congress and developing our strategy for influencing them, the Indivisible SF Federal Working Group is where it happens. Join us at our next meeting on Thursday, February 24. Details on how to register below.
ISF Federal Working Group meeting: Thursday, February 24, 7:30–9 PM. Register here to join our regular Zoom meeting, where we work together to develop strategies for influencing our Members of Congress and the Biden administration to support a progressive agenda. All are welcome to participate and contribute, even if you’ve never attended an ISF meeting before.
About this week’s photo
If you’ve seen our newsletter posts on Twitter and Facebook, you might have noticed that we include a photo or graphic with each issue. Today’s image is a photo of President Biden signing his first executive action in the Oval Office, taken by Evan Vucci for AP. The image was featured in an article for WHRO discussing President Biden’s redecorated Oval Office.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
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