Congress has already voted to spend money. Now the Republicans want America to stiff its creditors by refusing to raise the "debt ceiling." I can't tell my tell my creditors I decided not to raise my debt ceiling. Tell Congress to label the debt ceiling bill the "America Is Not A Deadbeat Nation" bill and demand Republicans to vote yes or no on the question: "Does America cheat its creditors?"

I’m Will Towers, a corrections officer from Oakland, Maine. My co-workers and I are willing to work together with the state to help solve our state’s fiscal situation. But we’re not willing to have our rights attacked. Instead of working with Maine’s state workers, our rabidly anti-worker governor, Paul LePage, is attacking us and our unions. Last week, I learned that LePage and his friends in the legislature are pushing a bill misleadingly called “right to work,” starting with a hearing this Thursday at 2:30p.m. L.D. 309—the bill our legislators will be considering—doesn’t give workers rights. It takes them away. It directly challenges the right of me and my co-workers to bargain freely over our wages, benefits and working conditions. I’ve had enough of Gov. LePage and his friends in the Maine legislature doing the bidding corporate CEOs, Wall Street hedge fund managers and out-of-state special interest groups who poured money into Maine’s 2010 elections.

This tax reform plan saves our middle class by lowering taxes for individuals and corporations, yet raises almost a trillion dollars more per year than our current tax system. The additional revenue creates and fully funds National Health Care, solves Social Security's long term funding problem, and allows all academically qualified students the opportunity to attend college free of charge. www.serioustaxreform.com

Recently in April, Congress passed a full-year spending bill after much contentious negotiation and many short-term Continuing Resolutions. Unfortunately, as part of the spending bill, Peace Corps received a substantial cut translating into a $25 million cut in the Peace Corps operating budget compared to the previous year's appropriation. The total agency budget for the year is now $375 million as compared to $400 million for FY10.

[for more info, visit Glass-SteagallNow.com] In response to the failure of thousands of banks across the country, Congress enacted the Banking Act of 1933, commonly known as Glass-Steagall, during the height of the Great Depression. This statute safeguarded the American economy for decades by legally separating commercial and investment banking. Such a common sense system provided greater security to banking deposits in commercial banks. Additionally, investment banks were only able to leverage their own funds, limiting the systemic risks of the American citizenry. For decades, Glass-Steagall was a cornerstone of the U.S. financial system, until the Gramm Leach Bliley Act unwisely completely ended this important financial regulation in 1999. With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act over a decade ago, the U.S. economy was exposed to an intolerable level of risk, and the recent financial crisis was certainly exacerbated by the removal of these safeguards. We must limit the potential for future economic collapses by returning to a more prudent banking system in which banks must once again choose between investment activities or commercial lending.

Today large businesses have unfair economic advantage over small businesses. Yet small businesses are major contributors to jobs, innovation and community economics. We petition the federal government to enact laws and regulations to ensure that small businesses have the same costs as large businesses in the following areas: 1. Percentage tax paid 2. Per capita health care 3. Shipping costs such as FEDEX and UPS

Senior Home Owners are hit hardest by Real Estate Tax increases. They dutifully paid their taxes during their earning years but because of the weak economy, many were forced into early retirement with Social Security as their main or only source of income. Even with the Senior Real Estate Freeze and Exemption policies, annual R/E tax increases to them of 15% are not uncommon. Current assessments can equal more than 30% of a senior’s Social Security income while all seniors have not had a COLA increase in 3 years. In Bensenville, IL R/E taxes were raised astronomically for the school budgets even though thousands of Bensenville families were displaced outside the school districts due to the O’Hare airport expansion. They actually raised taxes for schools even though there are less students to teach. This is an example of extreme government greed that hurts seniors the most. It’s time to stop penalizing those who can afford it the least before they are forced into foreclosure. Stop the government from stealing the quality of life Seniors have earned. Give Seniors a break and remove them from the tax rolls entirely. They’ve earned it.

For the last 30 years, churches have been more and more political, telling their parishioners who to vote for, what issues to vote for, etc., all the time growing wealthy on tax-free donations. The Constitution assumes that churches will be apolitical, small organizations: but today they are corporations, and, like all corporations, they should pay taxes.

Congress has been focused on transfering medical costs to seniors rather than reducing the total cost. Negotiating drug prices, just like the Canadian government does would save medicare, medicaid, other federal and state health programs Billions of dollars.

The Illinois Legislature is currently considering SB512 - a measure that would break the promise of a secure retirement to workers who have paid into the pension system and have worked for years on the front lines to improve our communities. We stand with workers across Illinois in calling on our legislators in Springfield to honor their commitments to public employees and vote "No" on SB 512.

Obama is trying to meet the Republicans halfway in their proposal to cut federal programs to trim the deficit. This gives him little room to negotiate to save federal programs affecting the poor and the elderly. What's really needed are higher taxes on the rich and elimination of tax breaks for large corporations.

Deep program cuts will halt our economic recovery and escalate already high unemployment rates in the state, especially in the CA Central Valley where unemployment rates already exceed 16%. CSU and UC systems have already been hit with $1 billion dollars in cuts earlier this year, and without a sensible budget they could face $15 billion more in cuts. We have a revenue problem. Tax extensions must be passed and taxes increased on the top 3%. The CA State Assembly and Gov. Brown can stop these cuts, allow the tax extensions and allow tax increases that will solve our budget deficit. We're calling on our elected officials, to stand up for CA working families, stop the program cuts, protect our state education system and solve the budget deficit.