Wyden Wants to Tax Health Care Benefits
Last year, in his failed run for the presidency, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proposed taxing working families’ health care benefits as part of his deeply flawed plan for health care reform.
The reaction was direct and swift. “No!” said unions, health care reform advocates and consumers. Candidate Barack Obama blasted the McCain proposal.
But today, the idea of taxing health care benefits has resurfaced, and from an unlikely source: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who for most of his career has been a good friend of working families. His call to tax your health care benefits is buried in legislation (S. 391) that he introduced this year and is now being considered by the Senate Finance Committee as one of several possible ways to finance health care reform.
The Best Gift We Can Give: Ourselves
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The Rev. Nelson Johnson is pastor of Faith Community Church and executive director of the Beloved Community Center, in Greensboro, N.C. He is the recent past national co-president of Interfaith Worker Justice and, this summer, joined in prayer with tobacco workers and Baldemar Velásquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). The Rev. Nelson reminds us here how fundamental to the union movement are the ways in which we give of ourselves.
The fullness of Christmas is upon us. For tens of millions, Christmas is the most significant holiday of the year. In fact it’s more than a day: Christmas is an entire season. Perhaps no other holiday season involves us in such a range of activities and emotions. Christmas is a season of sharing gifts with loved ones and being charitable toward total strangers; it is a season for gatherings of family, co-worker and religious entities. It is a period of reflection and commitment. Christmas is a season of renewed hope and new possibilities, proclaiming peace on earth and good will (or justice) to all.
