California Fair Share
Our top priority
Make Corporations Pay Their Fair Share
Big corporations — including GE, Wells Fargo and more — are using their lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the tax system in their favor, and some pay nothing in taxes.
That costs the rest of us $100 billion per year in lost taxes.
Join with California Fair Share, and tell your member of Congress: Close corporate tax loopholes, and put America back to work.
California Fair Share
California's leadership in the country's economy, politics and culture is unmatched. From Silicon Valley and Hollywood to Lake Tahoe and Mission Beach, the state has every possible asset. California is home to 53 Fortune 500 companies, including 13 of the 100 largest companies in the country. The state has the skilled workforce, factories, fertile land and unparalleled influence to drive our country’s economic recovery.
By any measure California is an economic force, but not everyone is benefiting. Currently, nearly 12% of Californians are unemployed, and more than one in ten families are below the poverty line. California’s future depends upon smart investments that put folks back to work immediately while building a fair and sustainable economy and making the state stronger over the long haul.
OUR LEAD CAMPAIGNS
Put America Back to Work
America has work to do: We need new schools, more teachers and better roads, bridges and transit systems. At the same time, millions of people who are ready, willing and able to get these jobs done are still unemployed.
It’s time to put America back to work. We can rehire teachers and firefighters who were laid off in the recession. We can put people to work building and rebuilding schools and fixing our roads and bridges. And we can pay for it by cutting $200 billion in wasteful subsidies and tax loopholes for the biggest corporations.
Learn more about California Fair Share's campaign to Put America Back to Work.
We are grateful that President Obama, Vice President Biden and leaders in the Senate came together to craft a bipartisan bill that will extend tax cuts for the middle class. Families and small businesses can breathe easier this new year, knowing that their taxes will not go up drastically in 2013. Learn more.
Get Big Money Out of Politics
Our democracy should give each of us a voice — and government should look out for us, not just for the privileged and powerful. But it doesn’t work that way. Instead, unlimited campaign spending from corporations and the richest Americans rig the system against the average voter.
Things are getting worse because the Supreme Court has decided that corporations are people, and that they and the wealthy can spend as much as they want on elections. Now big corporations and wealthy interests are flooding the airwaves, spending millions of dollars to elect candidates who will look out for their interests, not ours. They can spend unlimited amounts of money, without even disclosing who they are.
That’s just wrong. Corporations are not people, and the richest players shouldn’t get to buy our democracy.
Sign our petition to support a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA FAIR SHARE
Standing up for working families & middle class values
• California Fair Share works to provide every Californian with a fair shot at a good job, a secure future and a healthy, productive life by standing up to the Tea Party conservatives and Wall Street interests who block progress at every turn.
• Through door-to-door canvassing and grassroots lobbying, we press local and national government to do its job and defend working families against the privileged and powerful.
• And, we help elect leaders who will work for a fair economy and work to defeat politicians like Sarah Palin and Mitch McConnell who place extreme ideology and corporate profits ahead of ordinary citizens.
Grassroots action that gets results
• California Fair Share is part of the Fair Share network. Together, we talked face-to-face with hundreds of thousands of voters in critical battleground states to help elect President Obama in 2008 and prevent a wholesale Wall Street takeover of Congress in 2010.
• We followed up these efforts by reaching out in neighborhoods and activating our network of supporters to help pass measures that have saved millions of jobs and protected consumers by cracking down on health insurance companies and reining in the Wall Street mega-banks.
Photo credit: top: Evelyn Proimos, creative commons license via flickr.com.