Background
After repeated efforts by conservative Washington politicians to reenact the same failed policies, Members of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) took action. CPC Members traveled across the country listening to the
American people. Americans told us they want work and that cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
unemployment insurance and education is unacceptable; they want big banks to clean up the mess they made and
millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.

Act for the 99%
This bill is a comprehensive package of emergency jobs legislation, sensible revenue raisers, cuts to unnecessary
weapons platforms and measures to strengthen and protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  The Act for the
99% creates over 5 million jobs over the next two years and reduces the budget deficit by over $2 trillion over the
next ten years while protecting the programs Americans rely on.

KEY JOBS CREATION PROVISIONS

• Emergency jobs to put America to Work: creates 2.2 million jobs through on-the-job training and direct hire
  programs for cops, teachers, firefighters, construction and maintenance workers for schools, parks and public
  land workers, work study jobs for students, health providers including nurses and assistants and a new
  Community Corp to take care of our neighborhoods.
• Buy America: requires materials for government contracts are manufactured in the U.S.
• Infrastructure bank: creates an infrastructure bank that will allow private sector partnering with regions,
  States and localities to create infrastructure projects
• Protection of our wounded veterans – ensures that our veterans are not discriminated against in the
  workplace for time spent receiving treatment for injuries
• Investment in infrastructure and transportation – provides $50 billion to fix our crumbling roads, bridges,
  rail lines, sewer systems and to upgrade power lines and mass transit systems

REVENUE INCREASES AND SAVINGS

• Fairness in taxation – requires people that make over $1 million a year to pay their fair share, raising $800B
• Defense spending - A rare consensus has emerged among a wide range of policymakers, deficit reduction
  plan must tackle Defense spending. Ending unnecessary programs saves $280B
• Unchecked war spending - restricting spending in Afghanistan to planning and executing a responsible troop
  withdrawal saves ≈ $1.2 T
• Oil and gas industry and polluter taxes – the oil and gas corporations are among the most profitable on
  Earth; ending tax giveaways and requiring polluters to clean up their mess will raise over $60B
• Wall Street and speculators tax - The financial sector shattered the global economy – this 0.03 percent tax
  disincentivizes dangerous speculation by slightly raising the cost to trade which raises $350B
• Making Work Pay Tax Credit – this progressive tax refund that would put money into the pockets of those
  that need it most to boost the economy would be extended for 2 years

PROTECTING MEDICARE, MEDICAID AND SOCIAL SECURITY

• Public option – allowing a  public option to operate with private in the health care exchanges saves $88B
• Negotiate drug prices – allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical saves $156B
• Enhancing Medicaid rates – the fastest way to support state governments would be to restore the increased
  federal Medicaid matching rates
• Scrapping Social Security cap - Social Security by law cannot contribute to the deficit; however people
  making over $106,800 do not pay taxes on the additional income.  To ensure long-term solvency, this requires
  anyone making over $250,000 to pay the normal social security tax on their upper income.

^^^

Dear Friend, 

We co-chair the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and unlike far too many of our colleagues in Washington, we know that the 99% is right – we need bold action right now to turn our economy around.

That’s why we introduced a new bill in Congress yesterday, the “RESTORE the American Dream for the 99% Act.” It takes ideas that more than 130,000 of you shared to build the Contract for the American Dream and puts them into a comprehensive bill to fix our broken economy: creating 5 million jobs in two years, ending the war in Afghanistan, and establishing a new tax on millionaires and Wall Street greed, among many others.

The bill provides grants for on-the-job training, invests $50 billion to rebuild our roads and bridges, creates a national infrastructure bank and includes a strong “Buy America” provision to make sure our government contracts employ people right here at home.

We’d love for you to take a look at the bill for yourself. Please let us know what you think.

Thank you so much for all your support.

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva and Rep. Keith Ellison

Co-chairs

Congressional Progressive Caucus