Stop the TPP- Sacramento

Call to Californians:
Stand Up Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Day of Action


On February 4, 2016, President Obama will be permitted by Fast Track authority to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A signing ceremony will take place that day in New Zealand (February 3rd in California).

As you would expect from a deal negotiated behind closed doors with hundreds of corporate advisors, while the public and the press were shut out, the TPP would have detrimental impacts on jobs, wages, environmental sustainability, public health and human rights.

Following the signing, Congress will still have to ratify the TPP. The Obama administration is expected to send it to Congress as soon as it anticipates having enough votes to pass it. We can make sure that never happens. Tell Congress to oppose the TPP. Show your support at one of the events listed below and sign the petition telling your representative that the TPP hurts California!

Sacramento:

Feb. 4, 2016
1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Ca State Capitol – North Side L St.

For more info visit Facebook page.

6 Responses to Bernie Skeptics in 3 Minutes

America | Bernie Sanders

This is a non partisan posting  to encourage civic engagement and political participation.  The video is by the Sanders campaign.  The Sacramento Progressive Alliance has not yet endorsed any candidate for 2016.  Private donations fund our work . We are  not endorsed, authorized  nor affiliated with any candidate or committee.

Activist School 2

Young Socialists Conference

Activism School

Bernie Sanders is a Socialist - no kidding

It is interesting that some Democratic elected officials express concern that candidate Bernie Sanders is a socialist.  Yes, he is. (NY Times, Sac Bee)

I hope that in the meantime they don’t use SMUD, medicare, medical, social security, (all social democratic), public colleges and universities, and don’t use the water or flood control from Shasta, Oroville, or Folsom dams, the postal service, the Veteran’s Administration, the free way system, CalPers, STRS, or credit unions- all social democratic institutions.

Duane Campbell, DSA

CFA Prespares for a Strike at Sac State

Sacramento, CA—Despite an improved budget situation and extensive research showing that faculty play a critical role in student success, the California State University administration has consistently failed to invest in CSU faculty.  

In fact, for at least a decade, regardless of the ups and downs in state funding and in CSU tuition charged to students, or increases in the cost of living, faculty pay has remained stagnant.

Trustees have not budged from the 2% offer they made last year. CSU faculty are calling for a 5% increase that would restore some of the purchasing power they had 10 years ago. In rejecting CFA’s proposal management negotiators say they “have other priorities.”

Their unwillingness to be flexible despite increased state funding is at the core of the conflict that could lead to a strike of CSU faculty this term.

Democratic Political Revolution 101

People for Bernie, Sacramento for Bernie, and the Democratic Socialists of America are excited to announce the  Democratic Political Revolution 101 Tour to Sacramento in February.

As the rise in popularity of Bernie Sanders over the last six months has confirmed, voters — including many first-time voters — are excited about the possibility of a Sanders presidency. Despite the stigma once attached to his identification with democratic socialism,  he continues to surge in the polls, raise record-breaking amounts of grassroots donations and draw tens of thousands to volunteer and attend events.

Sanders is calling, explicitly, for a “political revolution.” But what does that mean?

Socialism in Black America

antiracismdsa: Socialism in Black America: by Rev. Andrew J. Wilkes We live in strange times. We have a black president using race-neutral framing for social justice, alongsi...

MLK March- Monday

Join Sac CLC Executive Director Fabrizio Sasso, your union Brothers & Sisters & the California Endowment at the MLK Day March this Monday, January 18th @ 8:30am at Sacramento City College (Student Center) for a conversation & meet-up about: Why raising the minimum wage is healthy for California's working families. 

Following a short program, all will join the march to the Sacramento Convention Center for MLK365.org's MLK Day Celebration & Festivities! 

Martin Luther King Jr. - Economic Justice for Our ...

Martin Luther King Jr. - Economic Justice for Our ...: In 1968, a united black community in Memphis stepped forward to support 1,300 municipal sanitation workers as they demanded higher wages...

Bernie Sanders SPEECH At Wall Street Reform and Financial Policy - HD

Building a Political Revolution

Sanders’ program includes both the social democratic reforms of progressive income and corporate taxation and the more radical “non-reformist” reforms that shift control over capital from corporations to social ownership. The former would be used to fund such public goods as free universal child care, free public higher education, and a national health care system. The latter includes a public infrastructure bank to invest one trillion dollars over ten years to create three million jobs and federal funding for worker cooperatives. His proposal to create a Post Office banking system would provide low-cost financial services to people who are now exploited by check-cashing services and payday lenders.

We may not be Denmark, as Hillary Clinton famously said, but Sanders would like the richest country in the world to do better than the small countries of northern Europe. Today, the United States spends 30% of its gross domestic product on public expenditure and over a quarter of that is wasted on mass incarceration and militarism. In contrast, northern European governments channel 45-55% of their GDP through the state and spend only 2% of their GDP on defense.

Why the difference? Most of northern Europe has publicly funded universal child care, truly universal health care, and more generous public pensions that replace 60% of average income. Social Security, our equivalent program, replaces a paltry 40%. How do these countries pay for programs that benefit all their residents? They can do it because affluent taxpayers see the value of these relatively high quality social goods and are willing to pay for them.

Could the United States afford these goods? Certainly, but only if the 1% and corporate America pay their fair share. In 1962, corporate taxes constituted more than 25% of federal revenues. Today, corporate taxes account for 8% of federal revenues. If the country just went back to the pre-Reagan and pre-George W. Bush tax levels on the top 5% of income earners, federal spending could immediately expand by $250 billion or more than 7%.

Harvey Schwartz: Building the Golden Gate Bridge -at- Time Tested Books

Harvey Schwartz: Building the Golden Gate Bridge -at- Time Tested Books: Harvey Schwartz: Building the Golden Gate Bridge -at- Time Tested Books -Join labor historian Harvey Schwartz for a reading from his new book, BUILDING THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE: A WORKERS’ ORAL HISTORY. Schwartz interviewed surviving 1930s construction workers when they were still with us. Together their voices describe the challenging working conditions, the accidents and tragedies, and the achievements of building an icon during the Great Depression. The emergent picture here is a profile of working-class life and culture in a bygone era.

When: Th, 1/21, 7-8:30pm

Time Tested Books. 

Friedrichs: Son of Bush v. Gore

Friedrichs: Son of Bush v. Gore: For Supreme Court conservatives, the Friedrichs case, which they heard yesterday, presents them with a twofer: They can both smash unions and defeat Democrats.

Teacher Unions Under Assault

Choosing Democracy: Teacher Unions Under Assault: On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that asks whether all workers in public sector unions, be they me...

Bernie Sanders and "The Big Short"

Larry Cohen

Campaign for America's Future
Hollywood stars play all the major roles in the film, but it is no puff piece for the 1 percent. After watching “The Big Short” and talking to viewers, it’s hard to argue against Sanders’ demands to increase taxes on the billionaires and break up the banks, and use the revenue to fund better health care and education.




Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ major policy speech at Town Hall in New York City on Tuesday – in which he declared that he will “break up any banks that are too big to fail and that big bankers will not be too big to jail” – felt a lot like the last scene of Adam McKay’s “The Big Short.”


Hollywood stars play all the major roles in the film, but it is no puff piece for the 1 percent. After watching “The Big Short” and talking to viewers, it’s hard to argue against Sanders’ demands to increase taxes on the billionaires and break up the banks, and use the revenue to fund better health care and education.

Sanders advocates a modern Glass-Steagall, a revival of the Depression-era law that would prevent investment banks from being on all sides of every bet except the side of the American people. And when you add in Sanders’s demands to end Super PAC campaign funding, and his own refusal to accept Wall Street funds in the current campaign, we are presented with a sharp contrast to the Hillary Clinton campaign and its supporters in the financial sector.

Join the Movement

What We’re Watching for in the Governor’s Proposed Budget

Budget · Taxes · Work, Income & Poverty · Child Care & Preschool · Health & Human Services · Criminal Justice · January 5, 2016 · By Budget Center

Later this week, Governor Jerry Brown will release his proposed budget for 2016-17, the state fiscal year that begins this coming July 1. The Budget Center will put out our “first look” analysis in the days following the budget’s release, and we’ll provide in-depth research, analysis, and commentary throughout the budget deliberations and beyond. (In order to get our latest information, keep reading this blog and also sign up for our email updates if you haven’t already done so.)

As a way of highlighting some of the key issues that we expect to shape this year’s budget debate, here are five things that we’re looking for in the Governor’s proposal.

1. State Revenue Projections

The issue:

The Administration has underestimated state revenues by billions of dollars in each fiscal year since 2012-13, and so far 2015-16 (the current budget year) looks to be no exception. As of November 2015, revenues from the state’s “big three” taxes — personal income, corporate income, and sales taxes — were a combined $653 million above the Administration’s projections. Moreover, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) anticipates that for the entire 2015-16 fiscal year, “big three” General Fund revenues will turn out to be $3.6 billion higher than what was projected last summer in the enacted budget, which relied on the Governor’s revenue forecast. As we’ve discussed before, low projections have consequences. If a healthier, but still cautious, revenue stream is reasonably projected, state policymakers can use the additional funds to strike a better balance among building up the state’s reserves, allocating for one-time uses, and investing in Californians’ futures. Overly conservative revenue projections leave dollars on the table that could otherwise be invested in services that promote broader and sustainable economic growth.

We’re watching for: updated economic and revenue forecasts.

How will the Administration’s revenue projections compare to those from the LAO? What share of General Fund revenues will go toward fulfilling the Proposition 98 minimum school funding guarantee? How much will go toward meeting Proposition 2 rainy day fund and debt payment requirements? How much room will there be for other state priorities, including building back support for critical public services that are still operating at or not much above recession-era levels of funding?

2. The Pending Expiration of the Managed Care Organization (MCO) Tax

The issue:

A state tax on health plans that currently reduces — or “offsets” — state spending on Medi-Cal by $1.1 billion expires on July 1. Without an extension, the offset will end, leaving a $1 billion-plus General Fund shortfall in the 2016-17 state budget. Despite the high stakes, state policymakers and health plans have not been able to reach an agreement on extending this tax. This is partly because — due to new federal guidelines — the tax must be restructured in a way that will cause some MCOs to see a hit to their bottom lines. (Currently, MCOs are held harmless from the tax through a complex financing mechanism involving federal funds.) This financial impact has caused at least some health plans to oppose extending the tax.

We’re watching for: how Governor Brown will address the looming $1 billion-plus General Fund shortfall. 

The Governor could try a “carrot” approach once again, calling on legislators to pass a revised MCO tax and pledging, in return, to support certain funding and policy changes for which lawmakers have been pressing. By assuming the MCO tax would be extended, the Governor would eliminate the $1 billion-plus funding gap, at least on paper. There’s also the “stick” approach — closing the shortfall with more than $1 billion in spending cuts aimed at putting maximum pressure on lawmakers in order to reach the two-thirds supermajorities needed to pass a new MCO tax. Finally, the Governor could simply give up on the MCO tax and fill the budget hole with General Fund dollars, adding more than $1 billion in new annual state spending obligations. This approach seems the least likely to win the Governor’s support.

More at California Budget and Policy Center

California Budget and Policy Center

Sacramento Minimum Wage Battle

By Seth Sandronsky

January 4, 2016 in Labor & Economy





On December 21, 2015, Organize Sacramento and Raise the Wage Sacramento filed documents with the city clerk to gather 21,503 valid voter signatures necessary to place a minimum-wage measure on this year’s November ballot. The measure would boost the city’s minimum wage to $15 by 2020, peg it to the Consumer Price Index and let workers earn paid sick leave.


Two months earlier the city council, on a 6-3 vote, had approved a minimum-wage ordinance bump to $12.50 by 2020. For Organize Sacramento and Raise the Wage Sacramento, though, that was too low and slow, spurring the current ballot drive for a $15 minimum wage. The Democratic Party of Sacramento County, Restaurant Opportunities Center United , Capital Region Organizing Project and Center for Workers’ Rights also back the measure.

Sacramento Has a Homeless Problem

More than 50 police officers raid homeless protest outside Sacramento City Hall just after midnight, leaders arrested




A handful of activists, plus their belonging and tables, remained out front of City Hall after an early morning raid by Sacramento police.

More than four dozen Sacramento police officers converged on City Hall grounds earlier this morning, just after midnight, in a raid of the ongoing homeless protest. After nearly four hours on the scene, law enforcement arrested or cited seven local activists, individuals who’d been planted outside City Hall going on four weeks, for violating the anti-camping ordinance.

Police surrounded the protesters at around 12:30 a.m., according to a legal observer on the scene. Most activists were awake, but many weren’t, hunkered down in sleeping bags. Two individuals had pitched tents.

Seven protesters were detained and taken to a staging area within City Hall, inside the lobby area. Four were arrested and eventually booked at downtown’s jail, charged with misdemeanor resisting arrest and cited for illegal camping. Protest organizers James “Faygo” Clark and David Andre were among those arrested. Clark was scheduled to be released arount 3 p.m. today.

California Minimum Wage Raise

Today, the minimum wage in California goes up to  $10 per hour. Not enough, but a start!

Power, Privilege, and the Oligarchy in 2016

Paul Krugman.  Jan. 1, 2016.

Wealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of folk wisdom; it’s a conclusion from serious social science, confirmed by statistical analysis and experiment. The affluent are, on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms and even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on the economic ladder.

And it’s obvious, even if we don’t have statistical confirmation, that extreme wealth can do extreme spiritual damage. Take someone whose personality might have been merely disagreeable under normal circumstances, and give him the kind of wealth that lets him surround himself with sycophants and usually get whatever he wants. It’s not hard to see how he could become almost pathologically self-regarding and unconcerned with others.

So what happens to a nation that gives ever-growing political power to the superrich?