In most states hourly tipped employees receive considerable less than minimum wage, $2.83 an hour in Pennsylvania, many people think that we receive minimum wage plus our gratuities. Most restaurant employers offer no benefits (must purchase your own health insurance, etc.), and never offer any kind of incentive raises, no matter the length of employment (one year of employment $2.83 an hour, ten years of employment $2.83 an hour). I think that a petition should be put to local state legislatures for all employers who pay their employees less than minimum wage, due to local governments inaction to raise our wages, to require these employers to state, in clear public view of all patrons of the restaurant, that "We pay our employees $_.__ an hour, and they are dependant on gratuities from our patrons for their living wages".

Sign this petition if you want total forgiveness on your soon-to-be-forgiven student loans by not having the federal or state require you to pay taxes on the forgiven amount. There have been many talks on forgiving student loans to stimulate the economy. There is also currently a program through the federal government's Direct Loans that forgive outstanding student loans for those who work in certain professions (such as teaching, civil service, etc) after the individuals makes 120 monthly payments starting in October 2007 while employed in qualified professions. For short, pay your student loans diligently for 10 years and the rest is forgiven. There is also legislation out there forgiving outstanding student loans for the rest of the population provided that the person has paid their loans diligently for 25 years. Sounds great, doesn't it? It is a great relief...but not quite until you see the whole picture. We pay taxes on debt forgiven by private creditors. Since there is no legislation written out there on how forgiven student loan debt is treated, consider it treated just like any other debt--if it is forgiven, it is INCOME to you. If it's income to you, then you MUST pay taxes. There haven't been talks on what happens when 2017 comes, or how these "forgiven" outstanding student loan debts are treated tax-wise (federal and state-wise). These "forgiven" amounts can range from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It sounds untrue, but there are many out there who had to defer their loans due to falling to bad times. Just picture that you're on the road to financial freedom once your student loan debt is forgiven (all without having to file for bankruptcy), only for you to owe thousands of dollars worth in federal and state taxes immediately on the year your outstanding student loan debt is forgiven. Sign this petition to ask all legislative parties to treat forgiven student loans as non-taxable.

Great way to help those who really try to better themselves by furthering there education, this petition will help those in need to complete there goals and dreams.

Our country needs disposable income to move the economy forward. Interest rates were lowered to get business to create jobs, but that is not what is happening. Businesses are hording their profits. It's time to get those who have enough money to purchase Certificates of Deposits or Treasury Bills to accrue a 4 to 5 % interest rate. This will help the government as well since it will increase the amount of taxes collected. Most people will use the extra cash they receive to buy more products thereby increasing the need for businesses to hire more workers. There will be a slight increase in the cost of living, but the overall effect should be better for the economy.

The United States has accrued a federal deficit like never before, and a large portion of that deficit has come on behalf of college graduates who have outstanding loans. While some are finding work pertinent to their degrees as the economy recovers, many in recent years since the recession are not finding jobs livable enough to pay down their student loans. Many collegiate institutions administer a "flat-rate" of tuition applicable to all majors, and many of the rest simply relish too high of a rate for graduates of any major to make payments on with the jobs that are available. The primary purpose of higher education is to develop work-force skills that enable graduates to find dignifying careers capable of paying back loans and allowing them to live independently. In a consumer market, the consumer should have the right to be compensated for a good that is sold and does not feasibly meet their needs. By signing this petition, you concur that it is imperative a program be instilled to help find those students possessing degrees jobs payable enough to repay loans and at least a minimum of living costs. If students went as far as they did with any degree at any state-accredited institution, it is not unimaginable they cannot train to perform tasks at any area of most major companies.

The Legal tender modernization act states that the penny and nickel be removed from the monetary system and one dollar bills be reintroduced as coins to make our monetary system better. The following is an explanation to why this should be done. You have probably heard through the grapevine by now that pennies are expensive to make and that we actually spend more producing them then they are actually worth and it is terrible that there is not more outrage about such a needless spending of tax dollar money. Not only that, they are polluting the world, zinc has a lot of byproducts that are harmful (but I will get more into that later on in this). In 2010 'Penny and Nickel Coints were produced at a loss of $42.6 million' according to US Mint Annual report which can be found here http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2010AnnualReport.pdf According to the report 1 Penny cost 1.7 Pennies to make last year with the changes they made to make it lighter, while the Nickel cost a overwhelmingly 9 cents to make. However there is not much of a movement to try to get pennies out of our system even though other countries have seen the advantages of not having pennies (Australia, and New Zealand being two of them). So what is taking so long for American's to change? Well we hate change. The Legal Tender Modernization Act (which would force the rounding off of all cash transactions to the nearest 10 cents, making the penny and nickel coin useless for everyday transactions) can be found here for more information on the terms of that bill please visit http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.2528: This petition is for pennies being out of production, when needed in cash transaction the transactions are rounded, and nothing changes for digital transfers. The penny according to the National Association of Convenience Stores has calculated that pennies cost people 2 to 3 seconds more per sale on average. It is also hurtful to the enviroment "making pennies wastes natural resources and is toxic to people and the environment – Pennies are 3 percent copper, and 97 percent zinc and are primarily made from virgin ore. Making pennies from zinc and copper means mining for those materials." One of the main contributors is Red Dog Mine, which is the largest zinc mine in the U.S and puts off a lot of pollution and is the top TRI producer in the United States (see first link for reference) because not only do they not follow regulations but they also put out "large quantities of heavy-metal and lead rich mining tailings. The process of refining both metals can release sulfur dioxide (SO2), lead and zinc into the environment" according to a conversation with Mike's Bikes (a company refusing to use pennies in the California area) to read more about that conversation it can be found at http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/pennies-make-sense-all/ and the facts about the current description of the mine by the EPA can be found here at http://www.epa.gov/region10/pdf/permits/npdes/ak/ak0038652-fs-1208.pdf or http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/MetalsMining/RedDogMine.html or http://www.epa.gov/TRI/tridata/tri08/national_analysis/pdr/2008%20TRI%20Workbook%20Section%20C.pdf or http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2010/2/Pages/Black-cloud-over-worlds-largest-zinc-mine.aspx or http://northern.org/news/epa-rescinds-key-red-dog-mine-permit-limits The major opposition to retiring the Penny is Americans for Common Cents, the pro-penny lobbying group funded by the zinc industry and penny distributors. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211567,00.html#ixzz1UjGJ3 Thank you for your time!

Loan money to States so that public employees, teachers, firemen, police can be rehired. This will help the economy to get rolling. We need more public employees not less as our population grows.

When the economy is suffering, austerity is not a solution! Governments need to step up funding to help decrease unemployment and, in so doing, continue vital services that the people need, including health care, mental health facilities, and education. Schools need repairs and more resources--especially teachers--to aid in learning. It is also important for the State of Illinois to honor its obligations public service employees by fully funding their pensions. For these reasons Illinois must find additional sources of revenue immediately to keep funding needed services throughout the state.

Cutting income taxes, when our state is next to the last in education funding is ludicrous. This is a smoke & mirror trick. Eliminating personal income taxes is only going to increase property taxes, and again it will be the lower income PEOPLE who will suffer the most.

uses unemployment money to subsidize 20% of net new hires for 2 years , making a taxable earner rather than a unemployment benefit user. Also makes USA more competitive to foreign work force. Net cost close to zero while makes jobs.

IF WE DONT CHANGE OUR LIFE STYLE THEIR WILL BE A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE USA. KEEP OUR MONEY WORKING FOR US!!!

My petition is about Red Light Violations in the State of Illinois. The reason why people should care about this are many. However, the main point of reason to care is because the RLV is oppressive. RLV does not help control traffic accidents as much as they take money from empty pockets and most of the time unfairly. The city of Chicago yellow light caution is suppose to be set at 3 seconds long when they are really 2.89 seconds in most areas. Most places have no warning that they are there so that the driver knows to wait for the red light to end. Most are placed in low income areas. And, we are not really sure how that money is being used for the benefit of all. They are truly unfair.