All young people deserve an education that protects, nurtures, inspires, and empowers them to create a better world. Today, however, our public education system is under heightened attack from those seeking to further defund and privatize a public good that is central to a healthy democracy – one that has been under-resourced and unequally funded from the start. Meanwhile, our young people are experiencing a mental health crisis exacerbated by the pandemic; schools are facing critical educator and staff shortages; culture wars are coming after Black, brown, and LGBTQ+ identities in our schools and communities; and climate disasters and extreme heat are increasingly decimating school infrastructure and the health and safety of our learning environments.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Ed Markey’s Green New Deal for Public Schools Act will invest $1.6 trillion over ten years in America’s K-12 education system, healing and strengthening our schools for the 21st century and addressing the holistic needs of students to support health, safety, and high quality learning opportunities. The bill puts young people and public education at the center of our national response to the crises of climate change, systemic racism, and economic inequality by:
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Creating an Office of Sustainable Schools within the U.S. Department of Education to administer new grant programs in collaboration with the Department of Energy
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Providing $446 billion in Climate Capital Facilities Grants and $40 billion for a Climate Change Resiliency Program to –
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Upgrade every public school building in the country – starting with the highest-need districts – to create safe, healthy, zero-carbon, and accessible learning environments for students and staff
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Investing $250 billion in Resource Block Grants for schools to –
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Drastically reduce student-to-staff ratios, equipping schools to approach target ratios of 12:1 for grades K-8 and 15:1 for grades 9-12
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Strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline
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Better integrate local knowledge & community relationships in high-need schools
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Develop and implement initiatives to support high quality teaching and learning, extracurricular and co-curricular activities, violence prevention, student mental health, and positive school climates.
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Creating an Educational Equity Planning Grants Pilot Program funded at $100 million to–
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Address historic school funding inequities within regions
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Increasing funding for Title I Part A and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) Part B by $850 billion over ten years, including –
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Quadrupling current funding for Title I Part A to reach $74 billion annually to support schools and districts with students living in poverty
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Tripling current funding for IDEA Part B to reach $44 billion annually to support students with disabilities
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According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the climate + community project, the Green New Deal for Public Schools will fund 1.3 million jobs per year and eliminate 78 million metric tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road. Climate Capital Facilities Grants will fully fund healthy green retrofits for the highest-need third of schools, as measured by the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, and offer a mix of grant funding and no- or low-interest loans for the middle and top thirds. Grants will cover two-thirds and one-third of retrofit costs for these schools, respectively.
Retrofitting our public schools will:
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Remove toxic materials such as mold and asbestos;
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Eliminate carbon emissions with a combination of energy efficiency upgrades and electrification, on-site renewable energy installation, and green power procurement; and
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Ensure full accessibility for students with disabilities.
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Additional funding will cover a broad spectrum of resiliency investments, from garden and tree planting to broadband infrastructure and EV charging stations. Each school will become a resiliency center for the surrounding community, and offer learning environments that serve as a living lab for the Green New Deal — directly engaging students in a range of sustainability topics, and kickstarting climate and other growth-sector STEAM careers across the country.
Resource Block Grants will fund staffing increases, expanded social service programming, school safety and positive school culture initiatives, and curriculum development at high-need schools. The program will allow Local Educational Agencies across the country to hire and train hundreds of thousands of additional educators and support staff, including paraprofessionals, school psychologists and counselors, and learning specialists. High-need LEAs may also use funds to design locally-rooted curricula; adopt trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and restorative justice practices, to move towards a “whole child” approach to public education; and partner with community organizations to offer a range of services to schools and surrounding neighborhoods, such as after-school programs.
Educational Equity Planning Grants will encourage neighboring LEAs to form regional consortia, which will receive funding to conduct extensive community outreach, identify the historical and current sources of educational disparities within the region, and create and implement a Regional Education Equity Plan to address those disparities.
All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admissions to our institutions of higher education. Yet many highly selective colleges and universities give preferential treatment to applicants with legacy status or whose families have donated to the university. Legacy admissions can take up to 10 to 25% of available slots at top universities. Some estimates indicate that applying as a legacy student can double to quadruple one’s chances of getting into a highly selective university. At Harvard, legacy applicants are five times more likely to be accepted than non-legacy applicants.
Historically, the origin of legacy admissions policies has antisemitic and anti-immigrant roots and has served to exclude the descendants of the very enslaved African Americans who built and maintained many highly selective colleges and universities. Today, the continued use of legacy and donor admissions policies overwhelmingly benefits white, wealthy students while creating yet another systemic barrier to accessing higher education for low-income students, Black and brown students, and first-generation students. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent devastating decision to overturn the use of race-conscious admissions policies, it is now more important than ever to cultivate diverse classrooms and to promote equitable pathways to higher education for Black and brown students.
To this end, Congressman Bowman (NY-16) and Senator Merkley (OR) reintroduced the Fair College Admissions for Students Act to promote equity in the college admissions process. Specifically, the bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to prohibit institutions of higher education participating in Federal student aid programs from giving admissions preference to students with legacy or donor status.
Our public schools are the heartbeat of our communities and a pillar of our democracy. They should be funded and supported as such to foster the joy, curiosity, rigor, creativity, collaboration, and problem solving skills of every child to reach their full potential. Developing the value and ethic of lifelong learning is fundamental to our commitment to educational equity and racial and economic justice. This requires focusing on 21st Century learning skills, wraparound social and health services that center the whole child, and ensuring our educators are afforded the time, space, and resources to provide holistic, experiential, and culturally responsive learning opportunities. High quality assessments, when designed and implemented thoughtfully in service of high quality curriculum, can be an important part of a balanced system that supports continuous, deeper learning and positive outcomes for all students.
The Problem: Today, we spend less time teaching, and more time testing. States are required by the Every Student Succeeds Act to administer statewide summative assessments annually in grades 3-8. The emphasis on annually testing every student using standardized summative assessments negatively impacts what gets taught in our schools and how it is taught, and is out of step with peer-reviewed research on K-12 assessment. For too long, limited time and resources in our chronically underfunded public schools have been focused on standardized tests that don’t adequately measure learning – or opportunities to learn – and are used inappropriately to make high-stakes decisions about grade retention, graduation, teacher evaluations and more. Furthermore, these high-stakes summative assessments rarely give us the kind of information necessary to fully understand the causes of inequities or to support educators, schools, and districts in providing high quality learning opportunities that meet the needs of every student.
There are a wide range of formative assessment practices that educators, schools and districts can and should be encouraged to develop and use to evaluate student learning, guide teaching, and inform families about their children’s progress on a regular basis. Rather than empowering our teachers to use classroom time for experiential, project-based learning experiences, our schools today face tremendous pressure to test prep, or ‘teach to the test,’ in such a way that often harms our students.
The More Teaching Less Testing Act would address these issues by:
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Building on the flexibility of ESSA, promoting ways to improve assessment and accountability for the ultimate purpose of increasing student learning opportunities, and addressing one of the several interconnected factors exacerbating the nationwide teacher shortage.
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Allowing states more flexibility to administer summative assessments and design assessment systems that support high quality teaching and learning. The bill would eliminate the current federally mandated testing schedule for summative assessments in math, reading & language arts, and science, and instead establish the following menu of options for states to choose from:
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Grade-span testing – states could test each of math, RLA, and science once in each grade span (3-5, 6-9, 10-12)
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Representative sampling – states could administer assessments in math, RLA, and science to representative samples of students each year in grades 3-8 and once in 9-12
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Combination testing – states could design a system that uses either of the following combinations:
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Grade-span + representative sampling
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Grade-span + matrix sampling
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Engaging educators, school leaders, families and advocates in determining an appropriate limitation on assessment and test preparation time.
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Establishing an Assessment Taskforce to Evaluate Testing Practices and Recommend Assessment Practices that Promote High Quality Teaching
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Authorizing $66 billion annually for Title I – quadruple the current authorized funding level – to correct chronic underfunding of our public schools and prioritize public education in our federal budget.
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Scaling up and improving ESSA’s Innovative Assessment Demonstration program. The bill would authorize $100 million annually for the program, marking the first time the pilot program has gotten an authorization of dedicated funds.
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Prohibiting states from using federally mandated statewide assessments as the sole or dominant factor for large-scale retention policies, high school graduation decisions, teacher evaluations, or school rating systems.
This bill does not eliminate summative assessments, but rather makes space for a more balanced assessment system that allows for both formative and summative assessments in service of high quality teaching and learning that meets the needs of all students.
The Equity for All Resolution boldly commits to making racial and economic equity a priority by cosponsoring my Equity for All Resolution. This legislation celebrates and uplifts the values of the Equity or Else quality-of-life platform as essential components to changing the belief systems both within and outside of our governmental bodies.
For generations, the NCAA and its members have withheld billions in revenue from their athletes, many of which are black and brown, whose labor drives the entire college sports industry while failing to protect their health, safety, and education. The NCAA has done this by unfairly asserting that college athletes are purely amateur athletes, not employees, who cannot be paid and do not have any rights to health care, safety, or education. Yet, college athletes have long been treated like employees: they provide a valuable service in exchange for compensation in the form of scholarships and stipends that they lose if they do not perform the job as strictly specified by their colleges.
However, federal courts and agencies are increasingly recognizing that the current system is illegal and that athletes should have the ability to collectively bargain, notably with the NCAA v. Alston SCOTUS decision, which found that the NCAA illegally colluded to keep from paying athletes for their labor, and the NLRB General Counsel's memo asserting that many athletes are already employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Currently, the NLRB is considering a union petition by Dartmouth men's basketball players that could open the door for thousands of athletes to form unions in the near future.
The College Athlete Right to Organize Act would help ensure that college athletes can organize and collectively bargain to demand the NCAA and its members treat them fairly by:
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Amending the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to define any college athlete as an employee of their college if they receive direct compensation from their college, whether via grant-in-aid or other forms of compensation, and that compensation requires participation in intercollegiate sports. This expanded definition will make it easier for athletes across sports and programs to file union petitions successfully by clarifying what an employment relationship under the NLRA looks like for athletes.
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Amending the NLRA to define public colleges, alongside private institutions, as employers within the context of intercollegiate sports, allowing athletes to collectively bargain at any college.
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Facilitating multiemployer bargaining units for college athletes by directing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to consider the colleges within an athletic conference as part of a bargaining unit with which college athletes can negotiate.
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Asserting the NLRB’s jurisdiction over all institutions of higher education within the context of intercollegiate athletics and on all collective bargaining and representation matters as well as labor disputes.
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Prohibiting any agreements, such as scholarship agreements, which waive the right of athletes to collectively bargain.
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Ensuring the current tax status of college athletes’ scholarships and other benefits does not change due to their employment status, nor does it affect their eligibility for financial aid.
Hip Hop, now a world-wide phenomenon, had humble beginnings in New York City. On August 11, 1973, at a “Back To School Jam” held in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York, a new innovative style of disk jockeying and engaging the crowd with rap was introduced by Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell. Since then, Hip Hop culture has spread across the nation and the world, uniquely infusing itself into the roots of communities everywhere.
The art and culture of Hip Hop, an original American creation, has transcended boundaries and has been reinvented many times over since its creation in 1973. Hip Hop artists and supporters were originally of African heritage but Hip Hop art and culture has become a melting pot, with its artists and supporters transcending ages, ethnicities, religions, locations, and socioeconomic statuses. Hip Hop has spawned a multi-billion dollar economy in various industries from high fashion to social media platforms. This influence has arguably placed Hip Hop at the center of American culture, both directly and indirectly influencing other genres of music and parts of American social life.
Despite these invaluable contributions to American culture and social life, Hip Hop has struggled to receive the recognition and admiration it deserves on a national level, and government officials have even banned the sale of certain rap albums and disparaged the music altogether. Bowman’s resolution aims to reverse the lack of public recognition of Hip Hop by unequivocally recognizing Hip Hop as a critical part of American culture as it has long deserved.
The Hip Hop Resolution designates the following national observances:
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August 11th as “Hip Hop Celebration Day” in honor of the anniversary of the birth of hip hop
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August as “Hip Hop Recognition Month” to highlight the contributions of hip hop to the broader American cultural landscape
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November as “Hip Hop History Month” to reflect on the historical treatment and development of the culture
Congressman Jamaal Bowman wrote and passed a resolution condemning the Great Replacement Theory for the first time in history. In 2022, the resolution passed 218-205 in the House. Rep. Bowman received widespread support from the Democratic caucus, including CBC Chairwoman Beatty, CHC Chairman Ruiz, CAPAC Chairwoman Chu, Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus Chairman Cicilline, CPC Chair Jayapal, Rep. Higgins, Rep. Takano, and Rep. Raskin who co-led the resolution along with a diverse coalition of members of Congress who co-sponsored the resolution. The “Great Replacement Theory” has been the root cause of a string of hateful mass murders and terrorist acts around the world from Buffalo, NY to Christchurch, New Zealand. This resolution is an exercise of Congress’ duty to acknowledge and condemn acts of racial violence and the beliefs that are used to falsely justify them, as well as reaffirm the federal government’s responsibility to combat white supremacy in all forms, with a coordinated whole-of-government approach.
Everyone should have access to the necessary utilities to heat and cool their homes. Yet across the country, people cannot afford their heating bills this winter, and are made vulnerable to negative impacts such as heat stroke during increasingly hot summers. Low-income households, Black, Latinx and Native American households, all experience disproportionately high energy burdens, meaning they have to pay large shares of their monthly incomes on energy bills. High energy burdens bring greater risk for respiratory diseases, increased stress and economic hardship, and housing instability. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the crisis of utility debt, with billions in utility debt accrued and over 1 million households facing utility shutoffs. The federal Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), initially authorized in 1982, provides essential energy assistance to low-income families in crisis. Unfortunately, despite being the largest energy assistance program in the US, LIHEAP is a severely underfunded, heavily means-tested program that has only been able to reach 16 percent of eligible households in recent years.
As the climate change emergency worsens, energy prices rise, COVID-19 utility moratoriums expire, and families continue to struggle, Congress must act urgently and boldly to expand and improve this program. To this end, Congressman Bowman and Senator Markey’s Heating and Cooling Relief Act invests $40 billion annually over 10 years to universalize LIHEAP, help end energy poverty for households across the country and support a just transition away from fossil fuel consumption.
Specifically, this bill:
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Increases annual funding for LIHEAP to $40 Billion and expands eligibility to ensure that no household pays more than three percent of their annual income on energy costs;
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Minimizes the barriers to administering and applying LIHEAP by allowing households to self-attest to eligibility criteria; increasing the administrative cap for outreach, technological and staffing purposes; and ensuring LIHEAP coordinators are paid a living wage;
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Protects consumers by ensuring no eligible household has their utilities shutoff or pays late fees, that every household receiving funds can have their utility debt cleared, and that utility companies set up discounted payment plans to support consumers;
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Ensures states can use LIHEAP to address climate adaptation by increasing funding for cooling assistance and ensuring households can access utility assistance during major disasters; and
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Increases funding made available for weatherization through LIHEAP, and establishing a new Just Transition Grant for states and localities to help reduce energy burdens for LIHEAP-eligible households and promote renewable energy usage.
A multiracial democracy that ensures the social, economic, and political rights of all in the United States requires us to tell the full truth about our country’s history. It is our moral imperative to ensure that everyone has access to high quality and historically accurate educational resources about our nation’s past and present. Most importantly, teaching the full truth to our students and communities promotes tolerance, justice, and love for humanity, not fear or hate.
Rep. Bowman’s and Senator Booker’s African American History Act invests $10 million over 5 years in the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to support African American history education programs that are voluntarily available for students, parents, and educators.
The bill funds a variety of activities, all of which will allow the NMAAHC to continue supporting educators, students, and families in learning about African American history. As a result of this bill, the NMAAHC will be able expand and improve upon their work in a variety of ways, including:
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Developing and maintaining a variety of accessible resources to promote an understanding of African American history. This includes a collection of digital content, housed on the NMAAHC website, to assist educators, students, and families across the country in teaching about and engaging with African American history.
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Engaging with local and state leaders interested in incorporating these resources in curricula
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Engaging with the public through programming, resources, and social media to increase awareness of African American history through a social justice and anti-bias lens
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Convening experts and creating and disseminating scholarly work
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Translating new and existing NMAAHC work into multiple languages
Further, the bill supports the NMAAHC’s work to increase national capacity for African American history education, including:
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Developing and disseminating high quality pedagogy related to teaching African American history
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Providing opportunities for Professional Development for early childhood, elementary, and secondary teachers
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Designing and implementing a teacher fellowship program
This bill would establish a research, development, demonstration, and commercial application program at the Department of Energy to improve understanding of the benefits, design, and impacts of airborne wind energy generation.
Our country has been hit by a full-blown cost of living crisis: food and gas prices have skyrocketed, on top of never-ending increases in rent, medical, and utility bills. Now, as the Federal Reserve responds by hiking interest rates – an attempt to slow inflation by throwing people out of work – we are facing the prospect of a recession. Struggling Americans need relief and protection, not punishment and austerity.
What is behind today’s soaring prices? Despite fearmongering from powerful interests, the problem is not that workers are fighting for decent wages. Nor is it the American Rescue Plan, which brought desperately needed public investment to our communities.
The real causes of this inflation are clear: decades of corporate greed that have left our supply chains brittle; the global economic shocks of the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine; and price-gouging from companies taking advantage of all of the above, while boasting about it to their wealthy investors. Over half of the recent growth in prices is linked to exploding corporate profits, while labor costs contributed less than 8%. While our government is taking some important steps in response to inflation, these conditions call for faster, nimble action that is targeted to the sources of instability.
Rep. Bowman’s Emergency Price Stabilization Act will launch a whole-of-government effort to tackle the cost of living crisis head-on. The bill expands the existing White House Supply Chains Disruption Task Force, creating a new Sub-Task Force that is empowered to:
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Monitor and analyze price changes related to food, energy, housing, health care, transportation, and other goods and services that are vital to the country’s health and economic security;
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Proactively investigate corporate profiteering in those areas, including price-gouging linked to supply chain disruptions, by using subpoena power to open up and examine corporate books;
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Make recommendations to the President for appropriate, strategic controls and regulations to limit growth and reduce volatility in those key prices, which the President is temporarily authorized to implement;
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Engage and mobilize the public as part of the process of monitoring and regulating prices, and harness the expertise of federal agencies, outside experts, unions, and community organizations; and
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Propose complementary measures to ensure adequate supply of relevant goods and services, expand productive capacity, and meet climate and public health standards in the application of any price controls or regulations.
There is nothing “natural,” and certainly nothing democratic, about the way prices are currently set in our economy: by a handful of corporate executives. Americans take it for granted that the prices of basic necessities should be regulated. But from local rent control boards to state utility commissions, our institutions have failed to apply this principle adequately or in the public interest. The Emergency Price Stabilization Act will fix that – and provide immediate relief to workers and consumers, while preparing us to weather future economic shocks on an unpredictable, rapidly warming planet.
At several points in our history, especially during and after World War II, the federal government has mobilized the country to bring prices and profits under democratic control. We can do so again today.
The opportunity to live in stable, affordable, and healthy housing should be easily accessible for all. Limited equity cooperative housing stems from the premise that housing should provide shelter, not a speculative opportunity for investors seeking to gain profit at the expense of people’s needs. In this model, residents purchase a below market-rate “equity” share of the cooperative corporation that owns the property of the cooperative and are charged affordable monthly carrying charges. Across the nation, we have seen how limited equity cooperatives make affordable homeownership a reality while fostering community. Limited equity cooperatives, like Co-op City in NY-16, can serve as a model for the nation on how to build and sustain decommodified housing and stable homeownership opportunities for those who are disproportionately exploited by the traditional housing market, banking, and credit system. This includes Black and brown people, low-income people, seniors, and people with disabilities who have been historically marginalized and excluded from stable housing opportunities in America.
Congress has historically underfunded vital affordable housing programs, leaving pre-existing federal housing programs limited in scale and scope. The lack of federal support for robust affordable housing initiatives comes at the expense of Black and brown communities who are being actively priced out of their neighborhoods and shut out of stable homeownership opportunities due to limited incomes, a lack of intergenerational wealth, and racial discrimination in banking and housing systems. The limited equity cooperative housing model can create an alternative path that doesn't feed into harmful real estate practices while also offering the stability that many seek through homeownership.
Rooted in a belief that housing is a human right, the Affordable CO-OP (Collective Opportunities for Owning Property) Act would dramatically increase federal support to create and sustain climate resilient, accessible, and permanently affordable limited equity cooperatives at the national level. Specifically, this legislation would:
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Equip HUD to issue direct, zero-interest loans for the predevelopment, development, preservation, and conversion of developments into limited equity cooperatives for low-to-moderate income households.
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Create a new grant program for limited equity cooperatives for green retrofits, community development, democratic governance activities, and resident support programming.
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Revise FEMA and Weatherization Assistance Program policies to ensure cooperatives can access disaster relief funding and weatherization funds.
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Establish an Office of Shared Equity Housing at HUD to support affordable cooperatives and provide technical assistance.
When billionaires avoid paying their fair share of taxes—as they all do—America’s working families suffer. The ability of the richest of the rich to delay, diminish and sometimes altogether eliminate their income-tax obligations means less revenue for healthcare, childcare, education, housing, paid parental and family leave, and other public services vital to working families. Congress can help families afford these costly services when billionaires pay their fair share.
The wealth of America’s approximately 700 billionaires grew by over $2 trillion during the first two years of the pandemic – rising from approximately $3 trillion to $5 trillion. That increase in wealth is roughly equal to the 10-year cost of the Build Back Better Act that passed the House last November. Simultaneously, federal programs investing in the well being and positive development of children have been chronically underfunded including the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, Title I education, affordable housing, and SNAP.
To make our tax code more equitable and create room for generational investments, Representative Bowman is introducing the Babies Over Billionaires Act. This bill will require ultra-wealthy taxpayers with over $100 million in assets to pay their fair share by taxing the value of their investment gains annually similar to how we treat wages. This tax will disproportionately impact the roughly 700 billionaires in the country and could potentially raise over $1 trillion over 10 years.
Specifically, the Babies Over Billionaires Act will:
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Annually tax 30% of unrealized gains of ultra-millionaires from publicly traded capital assets, such as stocks, at the prevailing long-term capital gains rate;
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Tax 50% of unrealized gains of private capital assets at the prevailing long-term capital gains rate every 5 years;
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Mandate the IRS annually audit filers reporting in excess of $100 million in assets to crack down on rampant tax abuse by the wealthy.
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Invest the revenue raised by this tax in programs run by the Department of Education and HHS that support families and children.
Here’s how the Babies Over Billionaires Act would work
If a billionaire’s stock portfolio was in a certain year worth $10 billion more than their initial investment, 30% of that investment gain (or $3 billion) would be taxed at the prevailing top federal income tax rate for capital gains (currently 23.8%), raising $714 million in revenue.
If that same year it’s estimated the billionaire’s private businesses, real estate holdings, oil paintings, yachts and other non-publicly traded assets are together worth $10 billion more than he put into them, half of that gain ($5 billion) would be assessed a tax at the same prevailing tax rate (i.e., 23.8%), or about $1.2 billion, which would be payable in five yearly installments of $240 million each.
We cannot allow big oil companies and other large, profitable corporations to use the COVID-19 pandemic, and the specter of inflation to price gouge Americans at the gas pump, the grocery store, or any other sector of our economy. Instead of asking struggling working families to keep paying higher and higher prices for gasoline, food and other basic necessities, the time has come to demand that large, profitable corporations make less money. During these troubling times, the working class cannot bear the brunt of this economic crisis. Corporate CEOs, wealthy shareholders, and the billionaire class.
The Ending Corporate Greed Act will:
Take on the greed of pandemic profiteers by imposing a 95% tax on the windfall profits of corporations with more than $500 million in annual revenue. Windfall profits would be determined by each company’s average profits during the five years preceding the pandemic. Because the tax is on profit and not revenue, companies that raise prices to account for rising expenses would not be penalized. However, companies that have chosen to raise prices in the pursuit of obscene profits would face a steep penalty. Had the tax been in effect in 2021, it would have raised an estimated $300 billion in one year from 25 of the largest corporate profiteers alone. For example:
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Chevron would have paid an additional $12.9 billion in taxes.
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Amazon would have paid an additional $27.5 billion in taxes.
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JP Morgan Chase would have paid an additional $18.8 billion in taxes.
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Berkshire Hathaway would have paid an additional $66.1 billion in taxes.
Lower prices for everyday Americans and fight inflation.
It is unconscionable that many of the largest corporations in America are using the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to enlarge their profits at the cost of increasing prices on working families. The windfall profits tax would eliminate the incentive for companies to use inflation as an opportunity to squeeze the public and further enrich their executives and shareholders.
Follow the precedent established by previous windfall profits taxes during times of crisis.
This is not a radical idea. During the first and second World Wars and the Korean War, the United States implemented a broad-based windfall profits tax, after which this legislation is modeled. During World War II, the tax rate reached as high as 95 percent, which ensured that companies could not profit off the war. In addition, the United States enacted a windfall profits on oil and gas companies as recently as the mid-1980s.
This bill was included in the final passage of the CHIPS Act.
To reverse the rise in violence we must target its root causes to help communities heal. Poverty, housing insecurity, food insecurity and other forms of material instability all contribute to the rise in violence and must be eliminated to eliminate violence. Similarly, for too long we have been overly dependent on punitive approaches to violence reduction that themselves risk exposure to further violence as police brutality. Instead, we must give communities the tools they need to combat violence in ways that have been empirically proven to work for them.
The National Cure Violence Awareness Day Resolution would designate May 18th “National Cure Violence Awareness Day” to raise awareness of violence of all kinds and assert that the federal government has a responsibility to execute a public health response to reduce violence. This response should include funding for innovative solutions such as trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy, violence intervention and prevention programs, hospital-based violence prevention and more. This necessary overhaul of our response to violence would better prepare communities to heal and reduce violence as much as possible.
Today there exists an urgent need for additional initiatives to diversify the fields of learners, research- ers, and institutions within STEM. Black and Hispanic workers remain underrepresented among all STEM jobs, representing 11% and 17% of all jobs but only 9% and 8% of STEM roles, respectively, according to Pew Research.
The Research Excellence through STEM Inclusion Act builds upon the Endless Frontier Act led by Rep. Khanna. It would ensure that the NSF Chief Diversity Officer's work includes advising on a diversity and inclusion strategy for the NSF's portfolio of preK-12 STEM education focused programs, as well as developing goals for addressing barriers to participation. This bill was included in the final passage of the CHIPS Act.
The Broadband Justice Act would expand affordable broadband access to the approximately 8 million households living in federally assisted housing across the country. This bill updates the HUD, Treasury, and USDA utility allowance definitions to include broadband as a subsidized utility, and creates a flexible grant program for affordable housing providers to improve broadband infrastructure and access.
There is a persistent digital divide in our country, and this is an economic and racial justice issue. 44% of Americans who make less than $30,000 do not have home broadband services. While 79% of white households have broadband at home, only 66% of Black households and 61% of Latinx households have home broadband. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that broadband is an essential utility for every 21st century household. During the first month of the pandemic alone, there was a 154% increase in tele and video health visits, and millions of students had to rely on the internet for remote learning. Affordable housing residents are twice as likely to lack access to high-quality internet, monthly broadband costs can be prohibitively expensive for families and individuals living in federally assisted housing.
As we work to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, we must turn our attention to the nexus of broadband and affordable housing, and guarantee accessible and affordable broadband to everyone living in subsidized housing. To this end, the Broadband Justice Act:
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Updates HUD, Treasury and USDA utility allowance definitions to include broadband as a subsidized utility, recognizing broadband as a 21st century utility.
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Provides additional operating funds to housing authorities and federally-assisted housing providers to support this change to the utility allowance definition, allowing for a $50 monthly broadband subsidy to every federally-assisted household.
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Creates a new flexible grant program for affordable housing providers to support wiring buildings, other broadband-related infrastructure needs, and any resident support related to broadband (e.g. education or helping tenants access plans).
We need care workers to help our youth, elderly and disabled individuals maintain their quality of life. But the United States today suffers from a lack of care infrastructure. Millions are struggling to access child care, health care, long-term supports and services, and paid family and medical leave. Care workers also need fair pay and rights. In NY-16, approximately 20,000 people work in health care and social assistance small businesses. Child care and home care workers earn $25,510 and $17,200 respectively, forcing many to live in poverty and rely on public assistance, and leading to high turnover within the field. Investing in care work and programs can boost the economy, meet people’s fundamental needs, and help us face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.
The Care for All Agenda will help strengthen our care economy, and it was introduced alongside Senator Elizabeth Warren. This resolution calls for investing in universal public programs to guarantee high-quality health care, home and community based services, child care, and paid family and medical leave to all people. It also calls for pay raises, benefits, protections, higher standards and a pathway to unionization for all care workers.
We are facing a national mental health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for mental healthcare while exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequities in access to high quality, culturally responsive care. As of 2023, nearly ? of adults in the U.S. were reporting symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder. In December 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an Advisory highlighting the urgency of the youth mental health crisis. However, our nation’s workforce of mental health professionals is not nearly sufficient to meet such an unprecedented moment. More than 122 million Americans live in a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area, and most schools do not meet recommended ratios for the number of school-employed mental health professionals to students. The United States needs over 6,000 additional mental healthcare professionals to meet this need.
Not only do we need more mental health professionals in our communities and schools, but we need more Black and Brown mental health professionals who are equipped to provide culturally responsive and trauma-informed care. As of 2021, only 8% of the national psychology workforce is Hispanic, 5% is Black or African-American, and 3% is Asian. This lack of diversity in the mental health workforce impedes access to high quality, culturally responsive care for historically marginalized communities. Black and Brown behavioral health providers have been shown to be more likely to meet the needs of historically marginalized populations and patients are more likely to report greater satisfaction when seen by providers who reflect their racial and ethnic identities.
To address these issues in our nation’s mental health system, Congressman Bowman (NY-16) introduced the Advancing Culturally Competent and Equitable Supportive Services (ACCESS) in Mental Health Act. This bill would:
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Provide grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) including Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) to create, expand, or improve graduate programs in mental health fields. These fields include psychology, counseling, social work, psychiatry, school-based mental health professions, substance use disorder prevention and treatment, and more.
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Provide grants of $10,000 per year to students pursuing graduate degrees in mental health fields at HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs to help cover the cost of attendance.
For decades, the Brooke Amendment to the U.S. Housing Act has set the standard that federal rental assistance programs would ensure recipients pay no more than 30% of household income in rent. This 30% rule-of-thumb has also informally influenced the private housing market, leading advocates and practitioners to recommend the 30%-of-income metric for the broader renter and homeowner populations as well. Research shows that Americans have seen a substantial increase in housing costs, in some cases surpassing 50% of household incomes: in 2022, over 42 million households were cost burdened, the majority of which were families of color.
This model is unsustainable, as incomes have failed to rise with inflation and housing market costs and families face rising costs for other necessities – such as health care, child care, education, transportation, and food – that take up increasingly large shares of household income.
Families in New York’s 16th district and across the country need relief. This is why Congressman Bowman is introducing the Fair Adjustments for Income-based Rental (FAIR) Costs Act to set a new standard for the following rental assistance programs that ensures rent does not exceed 20% of a family’s monthly income:
- Section 8 voucher and housing programs,
- Section 202 Housing for the Elderly,
- Section 811 Housing for Persons with Disabilities, and
- Section 521 USDA Rural Housing.
The FAIR Costs Act also authorizes necessary funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to support housing agencies in delivering this increased assistance and provide technical assistance to eligible families throughout the application process. The FAIR Costs Act is endorsed by the following organizations: Housing Justice for All, Desis Rising Up and Moving, New York Communities for Change, Mutual Housing Association of NY, Met Council on Housing, Tenants & Neighbors.