Equal Pay, Hillary on Nukes, Supreme Court
April 13, 2010
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SENATOR BARBARA MIKULSKI: A LEADER FOR EQUAL PAY, FOR BETTER HEALTH CARE, AND SO MUCH MORE
We’re proud to announce the first speaker in our members-only telephone conference call – Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski: Dean of women senators, and a noted fighter for progressive policies. Senator Mikulski led the effort to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act in 2009, and is the lead sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen equal pay laws today. She is also author of the Mikulski Amendment to the health care reform bill, which now ensures access to preventive healthcare and screenings, including mammograms for women under 50 and other lifesaving care.
Join Senator Barbara Mikulski to discuss equal pay and other major issues. Click here to join the call.
EQUAL PAY DAY IS APRIL 20, 2010. HOW MUCH DOES UNEQUAL PAY COST YOU?
With taxes due on April 15, and Equal Pay Day on April 20, we thought we’d count up just how much unequal pay costs American families. For example:
Young working women: A young woman graduate of the same school, with the same kind of job, and same personal characteristics (marital status, children) as her male colleagues, earns 5% less the first year out of school. Ten years later she earns 12% less.
Two-parent, two-earner family: More than 70% of women work outside the home, and are therefore important contributors to the household income. But full-time working women earn only 77% of what their male counterparts earn, so their family budgets are below what it could be. For women of color, the discrepancy is even greater – costing their families even more.
Senior women: A lifetime of lower earnings is compounded by lower Social Security benefits (based on what you earned) and fewer pension plans, so senior women wind up even further behind. The median income for women age 65 and over is just $12,080 – less than 2/3 that of men their age.
Lifetime Cost: $434,000 average.
What could you do with that $434,000 you earned – but never received? This Equal Pay Day, join us in supporting the Paycheck Fairness Act, to help make equal pay a reality!
For more information on equal pay, and why the Paycheck Fairness Act will make a difference, check our website.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
Have you joined No Limits yet? We have a full agenda in the year ahead: Economic and domestic policies that make a difference for working families, a new Supreme Court justice, and following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as she works for all of us around the world!
Join now to be sure you’re part of our policy call with Senator Barbara Mikulski!
TIME TO FIX AMERICA’S BANKING SYSTEM – BEFORE WE RISK ANOTHER FINANCIAL CRISIS
The financial crisis of the last two years has cost jobs, homes and financial security. It began with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, included the selling of extremely risky, virtually unregulated financial instruments that were often sold to investors as anything but, the destruction of major financial institutions, and predatory if not outright fraudulent lending practices. The result: a recession not seen in generations, resulting in millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who desperately want to work. Admittedly, it is not a sexy-sounding phrase, but if you aren’t calling for real financial regulatory reform NOW, you should be.
Fortunately, we may see action soon. With the leadership of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House of Representatives has passed The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This bill covers a wide variety of financial instruments and transactions, from pay day loans, car loans, home mortgages and credit cards to complex financial transactions. It increases consumer protections, in part through the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), a new, independent federal agency to protect consumers, and ends taxpayer bailouts by providing greater oversight of large and complex financial institutions and a mechanism to hold Wall Street, rather then the taxpayer, accountable for the costs of dismantling large, failing firms.
Now it’s up to the Senate, which will soon begin debate on a similar bill. The Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, introduced by Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, also addresses these issues, but is under attack in the Senate as opponents try to weaken its provisions. With so much money at stake, the fight is on!
It has been reported that five hundred million dollars were spent last year lobbying against many key reform provisions. It is so important that all of us speak up for real financial reform so that the devastation that our financial system and millions of American families experienced will never happen again.
For up-to-the-minute information about the fight for financial reform legislation being considered, check out Americans for Financial Reform.
JUSTICE STEVENS RETIRES: WHO WILL REPLACE HIM?
Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, “an unparalleled champion of the Constitution in the face of the Court’s increasingly conservative jurisprudential trend,” has announced that he will retire this summer.
Appointed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, Justice Stevens became a leader among the more liberal members of the Court, playing a key role – whether through opinions or through a behind-the-scenes role in persuading key justices – in landmark cases involving issues ranging from environmental protection, affirmative action, reproductive rights and LGBT rights, to the rights of criminal defendants. He is considered the Court’s most outspoken defender of the need for judicial oversight of executive power.
Who will replace Justice Stevens – on the court and as a leader for these important values? We’re watching.
Don’t miss our first members-only conference call! Join today!
HILLARY: WORKING FOR A SAFER WORLD
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is urging support for the new nuclear arms treaty, which will lower the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and the Soviet Union by almost a third, reducing the danger of access by terrorists and rogue states.
The treaty, which needs 67 votes in the Senate, has been attacked by former State Department aide Liz Cheney and former Governor Sarah Palin; but it also has bipartisan support, including former Secretaries of State for both Republican and Democratic Presidents. Hillary spoke about the importance of the treaty to America’s national security in a round of talk shows on Sunday, including Meet the Press (NBC), Face the Nation (CBS), and This Week (ABC).
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| Meet the Press | This Week | Face the Nation |
“While the United States and old Soviet Union are no longer locked in a nuclear standoff, nuclear proliferation is a leading source of insecurity in our world today.
“By ratifying this treaty, the United States won’t give up anything of strategic importance. But in return, we will receive significant, tangible benefits. Protecting the United States of America from nuclear attack is an issue that should be important to every single American.”
THE LAST WORD
“This is a very, very activist court, the most activist court in my lifetime. They rewrote the law to say that.... women could be paid less than men. They rewrote the law to say that age discrimination laws won't apply if corporate interests don't want them to. They rewrote the law to give ExxonMobil a $2 billion windfall. And they rewrote the law to say that corporations could come in and meddle in elections in this, in this country.”
- Senator Pat Leahy, on the current Supreme Court, April 11, 2010