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News Release | CALPIRG | Democracy

Rally Outside City Hall Calls for Constitutional Amendment

Los Angeles, CA- Angelinos gathered outside City Hall today in support of Proposition C, a ballot measure that would instruct Congress to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. 

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget

New Report: California Receives an “F” in Annual Report on Transparency of Government Spending

California received an “F” when it comes to government spending transparency, according to “Following the Money 2013: How the States Rank on Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data,” the fourth annual report of its kind by the CALPIRG Education Fund.  

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget

Following the Money 2013

Every year, state governments spend tens of billions of dollars through contracts with private entities for goods and services, subsidies to encourage economic development, grants, and other forms of spending. Accountability and public scrutiny are necessary to ensure that state funds are well spent. In comparison to the other 49 states, California is failing to provide taxpayers with transparency in government spending. 

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Blog Post | Public Health, Health Care

Supreme Court hears arguments on ‘Pay for Delay’ Case | Wesley Samms

Big Pharma’s anti-competitive practice costs consumers $3.5 billion a year. The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act was originally intended to increase the availability of generic drugs by allowing generic manufacturers to challenge the patents of name-brand drugs. What emerged in the aftermath was a practice where patent-holding pharmaceutical companies simply paid generic manufacturers not to challenge their patents, thus delaying the release of generic drugs for years. 

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Free Cookies - Strings Attached | Jon Fox

The price consumers pay to access most online content is the tracking of their every click on the World Wide Web by data miners and ad networks. Consumer and privacy advocates are seeking to address such online tracking through Do-Not-Track regulation.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Health Care

Anthem hikes rates 22%

Anthem Blue Cross is moving forward with a new rate hike on California consumers which will leave hundreds of thousands of individuals paying an average 22 percent more for insurance this year. Anthem had proposed raising rates 26 percent, but trimmed the rate to 22 percent after the California Department of Insurance (CDI) found the original increase unreasonable.

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Media Hit | Health Care

Letter to the Editor: Why healthcare costs so much

Wesley Samms' letter to the editor regarding the recent LA Times article: "Small surgery, huge markup," Business, Jan. 31

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News Release | CALPIRG | Democracy

Los Angeles City Votes to Allow Citizens to Weigh-In on Citizens United

The Los Angeles City Council took the final step today with a 10-1 vote to put the Common Cause and CALPIRG supported measure on the ballot.

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News Release | CALPIRG Education Fund | Tax

Offshore Tax Dodging Blows a $7 Billion Hole in California Budget:

Sacramento, February 5th – With California “on the move” with its budget CALPIRG released a new study revealing that California lost $7.147 Billion due to offshore tax dodging in 2012. Many of America’s wealthiest individuals and largest corporations, including Wells Fargo in California, use tax loopholes to shift profits made in America to offshore tax havens, where they pay little to no taxes.

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Media Hit | Budget

Editorial: City gets poor grade for transparency

In a report out this month, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group ranked Sacramento next to last among 30 large cities in providing online databases of its spending with "checkbook level" detail. The study also looked at how easily residents can track their service requests online.

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Report | CalPIRG Education Fund & Frontier Group | Budget, Transportation

Transportation and the New Generation

A new report released today by the CalPIRG Education Fund with Frontier Group demonstrates that Americans have been driving less since the middle of last decade.

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Budget, Tax

Following the money 2012

The ability to see how government uses the public purse is fundamental to democracy. Transparency in government spending promotes fiscal responsibility, checks corruption, and bolsters public confidence.

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Report | CALPIRG | Democracy

Auctioning Democracy

This appendix provides a detailed look at business funding for Super PACs: top business donors, Super PACs which received the most business money, and amount and number of contributions by state.

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Report | CALPIRG | Democracy

Auctioning Democracy

Dēmos and U.S. PIRG Education Fund analysis of Federal Election Commission data on Super PACs from their advent in 2010 through the end of 2011 reveals the following:

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Report | CALPIRG Education Fund | Consumer Protection

Making the Right Call

CALPIRG Education Fund releases new cell phone shoppers’ guide offering simple tips consumers can take to save money when buying a new cell phone.

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Blog Post | Food

Farm Bill Still Giving out Corporate Handouts to Big Ag | Emily Rusch

Instead of embracing reform, the Senate decided to continue to send tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to Big Ag. 

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

CFPB launches searchable credit card complaint database today | Ed Mierzwinski

Joining agencies including those that regulate cars (NHTSA's safercar.gov), toys and other consumer p roducts (CPSC's saferproducts.gov), medical devices (FDA's Maude) and airline service (DOT's sorta clunky Air Travel Consumer Protection Report), today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rolls out a searchable online complaint database (goes live 8am EST). The CFPB's new tool will be limited to credit cards to start, but other financial products will be added.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

As Wireless Plans Change, Consumers Are Priced Out

Verizon announced earlier this week that they would no longer be offering customers cheaper options for limited voice and text plans, shifting to unlimited voice and text minutes instead. While this change may benefit families or business on shared accounts, it will lead to price hikes for most individual smart-phone users.

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Blog Post | Democracy

Why Target Is Still a Target | Pedro Morillas

Two years ago, the public spoke out against the Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited corporate spending in politics when consumers boycotted Target Corporation for controversial political spending in Minnesota’s state elections. 

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

IPv6 Day - The Most Important Day You Never Heard Of | Jon Fox

Today marks the beginning of one of the greatest technological overhauls since mankind adopted paper money, with grave implications towards online privacy.

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Tools & Resources

  • YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP
    At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.
    Learn more
    Take Action
  • FIGHT HIGH Rx COSTS
    Prescription drugs cost too much. Brand-name drug companies have been paying off generic drug makers to delay competition and keep prices high, and it's costing us billions. Together, we can stop them.
    Learn more
    TAKE ACTION
  • STOP TAX DODGERS
    Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
    Learn more
    Take Action
  • Reclaim Democracy
    The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."
    Learn more
    ADD YOUR VOICE

You Can Help

We have a chance to cut billions in junk food subsidies this year. Your support will help us do the research, advocacy and grassroots organizing to convince our elected officials to act.

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PRIORITY ACTION

Each year, our tax dollars pay for enough junk food additives to buy 8.5 two-liter bottles of soda for each person under 18. Help stop the subsidies for junk food.

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Consumer Alerts

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