The FY 2018 Congressional Progressive Caucus Alternative Budget, The People's Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance tackles systemic issues with comprehensive solutions, from the impact of climate change on rural communities and communities of color, to implementing critical criminal justice reforms, to repairing and replacing outdated infrastructure, to creating millions of sustainable, good paying jobs all over the country.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is joined by organizations across the country who feel strongly that a budget is a moral document; instead of funding endless war and cutting access to vital services, we should make critical investments in repairing infrastructure, make billionaires and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, expand access to much-needed social service programs, ensure equal opportunities in education, reform our criminal justice system, and create good-paying, sustainable jobs that will not only lift families out of poverty but grow our middle class.

The following email advocacy campaign contains 5 individual letters directed to House Members based on past actions: previous Yes vote, Freshmen leading on The People's Budget, Dems not previously voting Yes, Republicans, Black Caucus Members.

5 Letter Direct Email Advocacy Campaign

For the FY2018 budget we have created individual direct email advocacy campaigns for the following budget areas:

Protecting Our Environment
The American people can’t afford to continue providing massive tax breaks and subsidies to fossil fuel companies while they emit more climate-warming pollution. The People’s Budget requires polluters to pay for their impact on our health and the global climate while eliminating tax breaks that subsidize fossil fuel energy over cleaner energy. Our budget provides a national energy policy focused on renewables and energy efficiency. It also provides funding for communities to adapt to climate change and protects those most at risk from environmental degradation.

Infrastructure and American Jobs
The People’s Budget invests $2 trillion in transforming our fossil-fuel energy system, overburdened mass transit, deteriorating schools, lead-contaminated water systems, and crumbling roads and bridges. Through local hiring and livable wages, the People’s Budget infrastructure plan creates millions of dignified jobs for women and men of all backgrounds in both urban and rural America.

Access to Housing and Eliminating Homelessness
The People’s Budget makes key investments that ensure low and middle-income Americans have access to affordable housing. Currently, only 25 percent of qualifying families in need of housing assistance are receiving this essential benefit. In order for families to reach the middle class, home ownership must be within reach. The CPC Budget funds and supports programs to end family homelessness and the affordable housing crisis.

Affordable Healthcare
Every American has a right to health care. The People’s Budget builds on the gains made through the Affordable Care Act and prioritizes reforms to increase access, equity, and affordability. Maintaining the positive reforms from the ACA are critical as Republicans attempt to gut the health care system and leave millions of Americans stranded without access to critical insurance coverage. The People’s Budget protects Medicare's integrity and improves its longterm solvency. It protects children and low-income Americans and gives states the freedom to transition to a single payer system.

Educational Opportunities for Every Student
Investing in students’ ability to learn is one of the most important investments we can make. The People’s Budget invests in our students by providing robust early learning opportunities, effective 21st century public schools and debt-free college. All kids, regardless of their zip code, deserve access to quality schools. Teachers and educational professionals deserve ample support to ensure they can enable student success. The People’s Budget also prioritizes access to higher education opportunities and puts forward a proposal to ensure students are not leaving college riddled with unmanageable debt.

Expanding Social Security
Every dollar in new tax breaks for the rich is a dollar cut from education, health care or retirement security. We need to invest in our workers and the people who have built and will build our country. With the nation facing a looming retirement income crisis, expanding Social Security will help ensure that every American can retire with security and dignity. Right now, Social Security benefits average just around $16,080 a year for retired workers. The People’s Budget supports increasing Social Security’s modest benefits separate and apart from budget discussions, because Social Security does not add a penny to the deficit and, by law, is not to be counted as part of the federal budget.

Justice and Fair Elections
The People’s Budget increases investments in programs to reform our criminal justice system and bring fairness and justice to all Americans. Our justice system has been dominated by racial disparities and The People’s Budget endorses significant changes to the criminal justice system, seeking to end excessively harsh criminal justice policies that result in mass incarceration and over-criminalization which stands in the way of a fair and equal society. We also invest in Department of Justice programs which investigate and take-on corporation monopolies and stop anti-competitive mergers.  

Pathways Out of Poverty and Empowering the Middle Class
A staggering 43 million Americans are living in poverty, including one in five children. These statistics are even more tragic in our vulnerable communities, including communities of color, seniors, and women. Drastic Republican budget cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy and ultrarich have made things harder for struggling and working families. It is past time we make concrete commitments to confront economic insecurity head-on, create pathways out of poverty and into the middle class, and provide opportunities for all. The People’s Budget expands and strengthens proven anti-poverty programs and initiatives and restores cuts to our nation’s vital programs.

Comprehensive and Just Immigration Reform
For years, we have spent exorbitant amounts of money on border enforcement without thoughtful consideration of our current economic and security needs, including impacts on border communities. The People's Budget provides funding for enhanced oversight, accountability and transparency in all aspects of border enforcement, including privacy protections, an end to racial and other profiling, and fundamental reform of Customs and Border Control (CBP) detention facilities. It ends funding for family detention centers that act as a misguided effort to deter Central American families and children fleeing violence from coming to the United States and prohibits detention quotas.

Sustainable Defense: Promoting Peace and Security
The People’s Budget prohibits any expansion of U.S. combat troops in Syria, prohibits an increase in defense spending and slashes wasteful Pentagon spending. We focus Pentagon spending on modern security threats instead of Cold War-era weapons systems. We also propose investments in a massive job-creation program that will help workers transition into civilian jobs. The People’s Budget also increases funding for diplomacy, sustainable development, and humanitarian assistance to address the ongoing crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and many other countries around the world. The Congressional Progressive Caucus does not support Pentagon cuts mandated by sequestration and believes there are more responsible savings achievable that will not harm service members and veterans.

Fair Tax System for Working Families
The CPC Budget follows the rule laid out by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that there should be “no absolute tax cut for the upper class.” With growing income inequality and Page | 8 The People’s Budget corporate profits at record highs, the richest individuals and corporations should contribute more for the public investments that contributed to their success, not less. The CPC Budget raises revenue from those who can afford it so America can invest in infrastructure, education, and other critical priorities. It closes wasteful loopholes that mostly benefit very wealthy individuals and large corporations. And it expands vital tax credits to help working families make ends meet and achieve a better future.