If We Lose Net Neutrality

Congressional GOP's Tax Plan Is Wildly Unpopular W/Public

The Republicans, with the support of Donald Trump, is trying to ram through Congress a tax plan that they claim will mostly benefit the middle class. But the American public is not buying that.

The chart above is from the website fivethirtyeight.com. It shows the average of five credible polls on the Trump/GOP tax plan, and compares that to the public's opinion on other tax cuts in the past. Note that every other tax cut in the past has a net approval rating from the public (ranging between +4 and +25). The Trump/GOP tax plan is different. It has a net approval rating of -14. That -14 rating is worse than the tax increases of 1990 and 1993.

Let me repeat that. The Trump/GOP tax cuts are less popular than the 1990 Bush I tax hike or the 1993 Clinton tax hike. That's pretty bad when polls have shown the public would support a tax cut. Why is this one so unpopular? The charts below show why. The public knows the GOP plan will give corporations a huge tax break, and they believe the wealthy will also get a tax break. But only 8% to 37% believe most Americans will get a tax cut.

Americans think the working and middle classes need a tax cut, and they would support a cut for those groups. But they don't want a cut for the rich and corporations -- the two groups that are currently doing better economically than ever before.

The charts below use information in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 26th and 28th of a random national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,319 registered voters), with a 3.2 point margin of error.

Paid To Lie

Political Cartoon is by Jim Morin in The Miami Herald.

A Second Poll Shows Pedophile Regaining Lead In Alabama

Will the citizens of Alabama send a known pedophile to Congress. Yesterday, I showed you a poll that says that is very likely, since Republican Roy Moore has regained the lead in that senate race. Now a second poll verifies that result.

It is the JMC Analytics Poll -- done on November 27th and 28th of a random sample of 650 Alabama registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.8 points. It shows the voters favoring Moore over Democrat Doug Jones by a 5 point margin (48% to 43%).

A Very Big "Baby"

Political Cartoon is by Steve Sack in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

CEO's Say Tax Cut Will NOT Go To Jobs/Higher Wages

Donald Trump and his Republican cohorts in Congress are still trying to convince Americans that cutting taxes radically for corporations will be good for all Americans. They say the corporations will use the tax money they save to hire new workers and raise worker salaries.

That has never been true when corporate taxes were cut in the past, and it's not true now. And corporate CEO's admit that the tax savings will NOT go to new jobs or higher wages. Instead, it will go to investor dividends and the corporate buy-back of their stocks. In other words, the rich will see the benefits -- not workers or middle class Americans.

Consider this part of a Bloomberg News article (written by Toluse Olorunnipa):

Major companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. say they’ll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting President Donald Trump’s promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class.

The president has held fast to his pledge even as top executives’ comments have run counter to it for months. Instead of hiring more workers or raising their pay, many companies say they’ll first increase dividends or buy back their own shares.

Robert Bradway, chief executive of Amgen Inc., said in an Oct. 25 earnings call that the company has been “actively returning capital in the form of growing dividend and buyback and I’d expect us to continue that.” Executives including Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey, Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio and Cisco CFO Kelly Kramer have recently made similar statements.

“We’ll be able to get much more aggressive on the share buyback” after a tax cut, Kramer said in a Nov. 16 interview.

U.S. voters disapprove of the Republican tax legislation by a two-to-one margin, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Nov. 15, and corporate promises to return any windfall to investors aren’t helping the White House sales effort. The Trump administration has appeared flummoxed. At a Nov. 14 speech to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council by Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, the moderator asked business leaders in the audience for a show of hands if they planned to reinvest tax cut proceeds. Few people responded.

“Why aren’t the other hands up?” Cohn asked.

Trump has insisted that the Republican tax plan cut the U.S. corporate rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. Another provision would impose an even lower tax rate on companies’ stockpiled overseas earnings, giving them an incentive to return trillions of dollars in offshore cash to the U.S. That money is also unlikely to spur hiring because companies are already well-capitalized and can bring on as many employees as they need, said John Shin, a foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“Companies are sitting on large amounts of cash. They’re not really financially constrained,” Shin, who conducted a survey of more than 300 companies asking their plans for a tax overhaul, said in an interview. “They’re still working for their shareholders, primarily."

Code Talking

Political Cartoon is by Lalo Alcaraz.

Perfect Description Of Trump

Eric Hoffer

Critical States Oppose The GOP's Tax Cut Plan

There are five Republican senators who have not yet agreed to vote for the GOP's Tax Plan in the Senate -- Senator Collins (Maine), Senator Corker (Tennessee), Senators Flake and McCain (Arizona), and Senator Johnson (Wisconsin). If the Republicans lose three of those five senators, then their tax plan will fail (just like the effort to repeal Obamacare). That's because the bill gives most of the cuts to corporations and the rich -- something the Democrats cannot support.

Making the pressure on those Republican senators rise is a new poll in three of the four states. Those polls show that voters in Maine oppose the GOP tax plan by 31 points, voters in Arizona by 18 points, and voters in Tennessee by 17 points. Those same voters believe the wealthy are the ones that will benefit the most from the Republican tax plan -- Maine (62%), Tennessee (54%), and Arizona (52%). If these senators vote for the GOP plan, then they will be voting against the wishes of the people in their own states.

These charts reflect the results of a Americans for Tax Fairness / Hart Research Poll done of 400 registered voters in each state -- Maine (November 18-20), Arizona (November 18-21), and Tennessee (November 17-19).

On The Cover

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.

GOP Pedophile Regains Lead In Alabama Senate Race

The question on everyone's mind for the last few weeks is what will happen in Alabama. Will that bright red state vote for a pedophile in the Senate race to avoid voting for a Democrat? If this new poll is correct, that seems to be exactly what they will do. Republican Roy Moore has regained the lead in that race.

The difference in the latest poll, according to the pollster, is that many Republicans who said they would not vote after learning of the charges against Moore are now changing their minds and coming back to supporting Moore.

The crazy thing is that most of those Republican voters in Alabama are evangelical christians who claim to be "Family values" voters. And yet, they are ready to vote for a pedophile. When did pedophilia become a christian family value?

The chart is from the Change Research Poll done on November 26th and 27th of a random sample of 1,868 Alabama registered voters, with a 2.3 point margin of error.

Supporting The Pedophile

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The Case Against Roy Moore Is Strong

(Cartoon image is by Nate Beeler in The Columbus Dispatch.)

William Saletan has written an excellent article at Slate.com about the dilemma Republicans find themselves in with a pedophile running on their ticket in Alabama. Many try to ignore the evidence against Roy Moore by claiming it hasn't been proven. That is some rather disingenuous wishful thinking on their part. The case is really very strong. Here's the case laid out by Saletan:

1. The accusers. Moore portrayed his first four accusers as pawns of the Washington Post, which reported their allegations. Since then, five more women have come forward, mostly speaking to outlets other than the Post. With one exception, the nine women don’t know one another. They’ve given their names and answered hard questions, in some cases on live TV, while Moore has stiff-armed reporters. Each woman has told only her own story, but there are hints that they’re just the tip of the iceberg. One recalls Moore telling her, “I go out with girls your age all the time.” Two of the women say they supported Trump. Another says she’s a Republican. A fourth calls herself a devout Christian. Yet Moore and his allies continue to dismiss all the allegations as a liberal plot.

2. Supporting witnesses. One accuser, Leigh Corfman, says Moore seduced her when she was 14. Moore says he never met her, but Corfman’s mother says she was present when the two met. Another accuser, Wendy Miller, says Moore flirted with her when she was 14 and asked her out at 16. Her mother, too, confirms the story, saying she told Moore he was too old to date her daughter. Kayla McLaughlin, who worked at a mall store with a third accuser, Gena Richardson, says she saw Moore pursue Richardson. Two other accusers, Beverly Nelson and Tina Johnson, told their sisters about Moore years ago. The idea that all these girls, their mothers, their sisters, and their friends began coordinating a massive lie decades ago—and somehow conspired to keep it quiet through Moore’s many previous political campaigns, saving it for a special Senate election in 2017—is completely preposterous. And that’s before we get to the many other people in Moore’s town, including a colleague in the district attorney’s office, who have broadly described, in some cases firsthand, how Moore fished for teenagers.

3. Documents. A February 1979 court order supports Corfman’s contention that she was down the hall from Moore’s office on the day she says they met. Moore’s campaign says Corfman’s story about where Moore picked her up for dates can’t be true because she didn’t live where she claims to have lived. But an old police report confirms that she did. (When the Post asked the Moore campaign to document its counterclaim that Corfman lived a mile away, the campaign replied: “We will not respond to anyone from the Post.”) Another court record shows that Johnson was a client of Moore in 1991, when she says he groped her.

Moore’s campaign has attacked Nelson’s story that he assaulted her 40 years ago outside a restaurant. The campaign has questioned whether the restaurant existed there at the time, and Moore’s wife has promoted claims that it didn’t. A 1978 city directory confirms that it did. Moore has also denied allegations by Corfman and another woman, Gloria Deason, that he gave them alcohol when they were underage. Moore says he couldn’t have done that, because the county didn’t permit alcohol sales at the time. This, too, is false: The county had legalized alcohol sales several years earlier, and the restaurant where Deason says Moore ordered bottles of Rose confirms that it served booze.

4. The yearbook. Moore says he never met Nelson. That leaves him to explain why she has a 1977 high-school yearbook bearing the inscription: “To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say ‘Merry Christmas.’ Christmas, 1977, Love, Roy Moore.” Moore points out that Nelson, too, has something to explain: Why, he asks, are the exact date and place where he ostensibly signed the yearbook written below his name “in a style inconsistent with the rest of the yearbook inscription”? That’s a good question. It’s possible that somebody else appended those details. But what’s striking is that Moore doesn’t challenge the inscription itself. He can’t dispute that it bears an uncanny resemblance to his handwriting on other documents. An expert consulted by the Post observes that the script flows without interruption, which would be hard for a forger to do.

At a Nov. 15 press conference, Phillip Jauregui, an attorney for Moore, questioned whether “everything written in that yearbook was written by Roy Moore.” That sounds like an implicit acknowledgment that part of it was. (Nelson’s attorney, Gloria Allred, says she’ll hand over the yearbook if Moore agrees to testify, along with Nelson, under oath. Moore hasn’t accepted the challenge.) It’s also curious that Moore’s campaign, which has dug up old documents bearing his signature, has yet to produce any that don’t match Nelson’s inscription. And the yearbook itself nails down that the inscription was written in late 1977, when Moore was 30 and Nelson had just turned 16. So even if you discount the appended text, we’re left with Moore’s note to a “beautiful girl” half his age, whom he claims he never knew.

5. Confessions. Moore says he first noticed Kayla Kisor, the girl who would become his wife, when she performed at a dance recital at age 15 or 16. That would be around 1977, the same year that three of his accusers, who were roughly the same age as Kisor, say he pursued them. In fact, Nelson was in Kisor’s high-school class. And though Moore told Hannity he did “not generally” date teenagers while in his 30s, he also denied “dating any girl without the permission of her mother,” which suggests that the girls were young. That fits the story told by Wendy Miller’s mother, who says she rejected Moore’s request to date her 16-year-old daughter. . . .

Like anyone else accused of wrongdoing, Moore began with a presumption of innocence. But he has forfeited it. His assertions are demonstrably false. Too many witnesses, documents, and self-incriminating statements have discredited him and substantiated the case against him. You can still plead, as Trump does, that voters should look past the allegations because Moore “totally denies” them. But that’s not a serious argument. It’s an excuse to ignore what Moore did.

Birds Of A Feather

Political Cartoon is by Jonathan Schmock at jonathanschmock.com.

At This Point

Robbing Grandma To Reward Wall Street

Sexual Harassment Has Always Been A U.S. Problem

The chart above is from a recent Rasmussen Poll -- done on November 19th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

The poll shows that 26% of Americans think sexual harassment has increased in this country. That's probably because we now hear about it more. I think they are wrong, and so do 68% of the poll's respondents.

The truth is that this country, since its establishment, has been a patriarchy. Men have held the reins of power -- and too many of those men have abused that power to sexually harass (and even assault) women. We are hearing more about it these days because women have been coming forward to tell their stories of harassment and abuse, and because the media is finally willing to report those stories.

But the fact that this harassment/abuse has always existed in this country does not make it right, and in no way justifies the actions of the offenders. It is something that must be stamped out. And it cannot be done just by women. Men still hold most of the power, and that means they must step forward to do the most to eliminate the problem.

In the final analysis, this is a gender equality issue. We have talked a lot about equal pay and equal opportunity for women, but the elimination of sexual harassment is just as important. As long as it is allowed to exist, there will never be true gender equality.

It Finally Sinks In

Political Cartoon is by Darrin Bell at darrinbell.com.

Small Businesses Oppose The Republican Tax Plan

The Republican claim that their tax plan would mainly benefit the middle class has been exposed as a lie. They also claimed the plan would benefit small businesses. But small business owners don't think that is true either. About 51% oppose the plan, while only 34% support it. Why? Because most (58%) say the wealthy and the corporations will benefit the most from the plan. They are not opposed to tax cuts, but think those cuts should go to the middle class and small business owners -- not the rich and the corporations.

These charts are from a recent Businesses for Responsible Tax Reform / Public Policy Polling Survey -- done on November 17th and 18th of 794 small business owners, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

Hypocritical Outrage

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.

The CBO Rates The GOP Tax Plan (And It's Not Good)

The congressional Republicans are still trying to sell their tax plan to the public as benefitting mainly the middle class. That is an outrageous lie! And now we have the numbers to prove that.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has rated the GOP tax plan. Some of the results are shown in the chart above. A positive number means that income group will pay more in taxes or receive less in government spending. A negative number means that groups will pay less in taxes or receive more in government spending.

Note that those making $30,000 or less will get no tax cut and those making less than $75,000 will be paying more in taxes by 2027 than they pay now (because any small cut they get now will disappear because they are only temporary cuts). Note though that those making more than $75,000 will see their larger cuts remain -- because tax cuts for upper incomes and for corporations are permanent (not temporary like for most Americans.

The rich and the corporations get the biggest tax cuts, and their cuts are permanent. The working and middle classes get small cuts that are only temporary. Does that sound like a "Middle class tax cut" to you? The Republicans are selling out the working and middle classes so they can give massive cuts to their true constituency -- the rich and the corporations.

And that's not all. The Republicans slipped a provision into the tax plan that would eliminate the individual mandate for the Affordable Care Act. Some Americans might think that's good, but it isn't. According to the CBO, this will cause 4 million people to lose their health insurance by 2019, and 13 million by 2027. And those who don't lose their insurance will see their cost of insurance premiums rise by 10% each year through 2027.

This is a bad bill that hurts the working and middle classes while rewarding the rich and corporations (the two groups that didn't need government help). It should be defeated.

New Face For An Old Monster

Political Cartoon is by Barry Deutsch at leftycartoons.com.

Christian Evangelicals - The Biggest Hypocrites In The U.S.

Both the picture above and the article below (only part of which I post here) by Francis Maxwell are from The Huffington Post. Maxwell writes:

Ahhh, Christianity in America. Or should I say, the single greatest cause of atheism today. You know who I’m talking about, right? The type of people who acknowledge Jesus with their words, and deny him through their lifestyle. The ones who preach the importance of traditional family values, all while holding a rally and offering standing ovations for a man who preyed on 14-year-old girls. The ones who look to excuse the despicable allegations directed at Roy Moore by literally quoting the bible, comparing his molestation to Joseph and Mary. I give you the most hypocritical religious group in America, Evangelical Christians. . . .

Aside from preaching anti-LGBT rhetoric and abstinence to the world, evangelical Christians have proudly touted themselves as righteous do-gooders doing the Lord’s work. Until you insert politics into the mix. Then “the Lords’” work means about as much to them as consent means to Donald Trump.

In 2016, 72 percent of evangelicals reported that immoral leaders could still govern ethically, which was validated when 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted last year cast their ballot for Donald Trump. They were happy to shelve their morality in order to justify electing a thrice-married, casino mogul who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy and rarely goes to church ― but yeah, thanks Jesus. And now they’re ratcheting up the hypocrisy even further with the stern defense of alleged child molester Roy Moore.

The everyday filth that has become the support of Roy Moore has shone further light on this selective morality. Moore has long been an icon for the evangelical Christian community, from his defiance of a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building, to his staunch opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. All of which, I guess, grant you refuge when several detailed allegations of child molestation become public, as long as you are part of the right political party. . . .

Evangelicals preach about maintaining gender roles and American family values whilst deliberately ignoring that the values they uphold on gender is part of the reason someone like Roy Moore is able to wander through life grooming minors and come out unscathed. The gender construct of evangelicals is the problem, not society’s willingness to accept different gender identities. The LGBT community is not the one who prides itself on male dominance, allowing for the normalization of child sexual abuse ― that’s evangelicals. . . .

Evangelicals will make the world think embracing a progressive outlook on gender identity will be the beginning of the end for society and American values. When really it is their medieval ideology that has to change.

2017 - The Year Of Regression

Political Cartoon is by Ruben Bolling at tomthedancingbug.com.

How Is The GOP Still Standing ?

How "Trickle-Down" Really Works

Congressional Numbers Are Pitiful (And Tax Plan Won't Help)

Donald Trump's approval numbers are bad (the worst of any modern president), but his numbers look great when compared to the approval numbers of the 115th Congress. Only 10% of the population approves of the job the Republican-controlled Congress is doing.

Those terrible numbers suggest that 2018 may well be a wave election (one in which control of Congress is flipped to the party currently out of power). And the poll numbers for 2018 show that could be true. RealClearPolitics is reporting that every poll is showing the Democrats with an advantage among voters -- and the average of all those recent polls show the Democrats with a 9.6 point advantage. The last time that big an advantage for either party was recorded was in 2010 -- when the Republicans surged to power by taking 63 new seats in the House of Representatives.

The Republicans seem to think that if they can just pass their tax plan (which gives massive tax cuts to the rich and corporations), then the voters will be happy. I think they are wrong. The bottom chart shows the net approval (approval minus disapproval) for the GOP tax plan. Note that the public has an 11 point disapproval of the plan -- and that disapproval stretches to almost all groups.

The public wants a tax cut, but they don't want the Republican version. They want the tax cuts to go to working and middle class people -- not the rich or corporations.

Both os these charts use information in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 19th and 21st of a random national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,344 registered voters), with a 3.3 point margin of error.

Protecting The Children

Political Cartoon is by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Trump Numbers Are Bad On Issues And Personal Qualities

If you were wondering why Trump has the lowest approval of any modern president, and can't seem to improve those numbers, these charts can help answer the question. It seems that the public disagrees with how Trump is handling almost every issue facing the country (top chart). And they also don't think his personal qualities are admirable (see bottom chart).

These charts reflect information in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 19th and 21st of a random national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,344 registered voters), with a margin of error of 3.3 points.

No Moral Voice

Political Cartoon is by Stuart Carlson at carlsontoons.com.

Trump Won By Appealing To America's Racism

(This cartoon image is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.)

Pundits have come up with various reasons for Trump winning the 2016 election, but most ignore the most obvious. Trump appealed to the racist tendencies of White voters, and they loved it (even though most would deny being racist). Here is just a tiny part of an excellent article on this subject by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic:

Even before he won, the United States was consumed by a debate over the nature of his appeal. Was racism the driving force behind Trump’s candidacy? If so, how could Americans, the vast majority of whom say they oppose racism, back a racist candidate?

During the final few weeks of the campaign, I asked dozens of Trump supporters about their candidate’s remarks regarding Muslims and people of color. I wanted to understand how these average Republicans—those who would never read the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer or go to a Klan rally at a Confederate statue—had nevertheless embraced someone who demonized religious and ethnic minorities. What I found was that Trump embodied his supporters’ most profound beliefs—combining an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked.

It was not just Trump’s supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum . . . searched desperately for any alternative explanation—outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety—to the one staring them in the face. The frequent postelection media expeditions to Trump country to see whether the fever has broken, or whether Trump’s most ardent supporters have changed their minds, are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of. . . .

Most Trump supporters I spoke with were not people who thought of themselves as racist. Rather, they saw themselves as antiracist, as people who held no hostility toward religious and ethnic minorities whatsoever—a sentiment they projected onto their candidate. . . .

Far more numerous and powerful than the extremists in Berkeley and Charlottesville who have drawn headlines since Trump’s election, these Americans, who would never think of themselves as possessing racial animus, voted for a candidate whose ideal vision of America excludes millions of fellow citizens because of their race or religion.

The specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory,even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated—provides the emotional core of its appeal. It is the most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal.

While other factors also led to Trump’s victory—the last-minute letter from former FBI Director James Comey, the sexism that rationalized supporting Trump despite his confession of sexual assault, Hillary Clinton’s neglect of the Midwest—had racism been toxic to the American electorate, Trump’s candidacy would not have been viable. . . .

One hundred thirty-nine years since Reconstruction, and half a century since the tail end of the civil-rights movement, a majority of white voters backed a candidate who explicitly pledged to use the power of the state against people of color and religious minorities, and stood by him as that pledge has been among the few to survive the first year of his presidency. Their support was enough to win the White House, and has solidified a return to a politics of white identity that has been one of the most destructive forces in American history. This all occurred before the eyes of a disbelieving press and political class, who plunged into fierce denial about how and why this had happened. That is the story of the 2016 election.

Tsunami

Political Cartoon is by Mike Smith in the Las Vegas Sun.

It's A Lie

Heinlein On Gods

Voters Still Credit Obama For Health Of Current Economy

These charts reflect information in a recent Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between November 15th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,415 voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.

A majority of the voting public thinks the current economy is good, while only 41% say it is poor. Donald Trump has consistently tried to take credit for this, but the voters aren't buying his bragging. Even though the numbers have tightened recently, a plurality still give more credit for the health of the economy to Barack Obama (43% to 41%).

Considering his virulent narcissism, that has to bother Trump.

Tip Of The Iceberg

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

Alabama's Sneaky New Version Of The Poll Tax

(Cartoon image from flaglerlive.com is by Randall Enos.)

The South used to keep poor people and minorities from voting by charging a poll tax. That was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. They said you cannot charge people to be able to vote. But the Republicans in Alabama have gone through the back door to re-institute a version of the poll tax (which they hope will keep many of the poor and minorities from voting). Here is Robert Reich's view on it:

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are being denied the right to vote because they are poor. 

In nine states, Republican legislators have enacted laws that disenfranchise anyone with outstanding legal fees or court fines. For example, in Alabama more than 100,000 people who owe money – roughly 3 percent of the state’s voting-age population – have been struck from voting rolls.  

This is unconstitutional. In 1964, the 24th amendment abolished the poll tax, a Jim Crow tactic used to bar poor blacks from voting. 

These new laws are a modern reincarnation of that unconstitutional system, disproportionately disenfranchising people of color. 

Income and wealth should have no bearing on the right to vote. Many Americans are struggling to make ends meet. But they still have a constitutional right to make their voices heard.

Preventing people from voting because they owe legal fees or court fines muzzle low-income Americans at a time in our nation’s history when the rich have more political power than ever. 

These state laws are another form of voter suppression – like gerrymandering, voter ID requirements, and bars on anyone with felony convictions from voting. 

We must not let them stand.