Dear Patty,
Trump is throwing his weight behind a massive #InfrastructureScam that will poison our air and water and let Wall Street charge Americans tolls – even making it the centerpiece of his State of the Union address.1
The scam will do nothing to actually rebuild America – but some Democrats may fall for it, anyway. After a decade seeing Republicans block real, Democratic plans to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, too many Democrats have shown an interest in collaborating on infrastructure with the racist, xenophobic, misogynist occupying the White House.
We need massive investments in America’s roads, bridges, transit, schools and parks – but we can do it without helping Trump’s corporate cronies get rich while gutting environmental protections. With the Trump puppets spewing disinformation about his plans following the State of the Union, we need to ramp up the pressure immediately.
Tell Congress: Block and resist Trump’s #InfrastructureScam. Click here to sign the petition.
We at CREDO have not forgotten that opposition to the Nazi regime in Germany faded fastest in the areas where it built the Autobahn.2 Authoritarian regimes use such projects to buy silence while they crack down on vulnerable groups. There is no excuse for helping Donald Trump’s political position by collaborating on infrastructure.
Instead, we need to push members of Congress to forcefully reject the Trump #InfrastructureScam and stand up for a real, progressive and people-first plan. Trump’s plan would:3,4
- Gut environmental protections
- Allow Trump cronies to push projects without public input
- Turn public highways into toll roads
- Sell off public property to distant Wall Street hedge fund landlords
- Pad the profits of contractors for projects already underway
- Give billions in tax handouts to Wall Street corporations
- Fuel the construction of more dirty energy pipelines
- Lower worker pay and sabotage worker power
- Produce few new jobs, as companies will just pocket subsidies on projects already underway
Trump tried to disguise his first big bailout for Wall Street, polluters and corporate interests as a tax plan, and now the second bailout comes in the guise of an #InfrastructureScam. We need to force every Democrat to oppose this scam – and put Republicans on the defensive.
Tell Congress: Block and resist Trump’s #InfrastructureScam. Click here to sign the petition.
Under Trump’s proposal, Americans would pay to give private corporations a subsidy to buy the infrastructure Americans build and funded.5 We would pay the “Trump tolls” those companies would charge to return massive profits to well-connected Wall Street investors.6 And we would pay with poorer health and fewer jobs when those companies focus on projects that maximize profits instead of investing in clean energy from wind and solar, small roads and bridges, and repairing water systems that poison children.7
Instead of a handout for Wall Street, progressives have outlined infrastructure principles that would create millions of jobs by directly rebuilding crumbling roads, bridges and schools and investing in 21st century infrastructure projects. In these crucial days when members of Congress are weighing how to react to Trump’s plan, we need to make sure they know Americans oppose the Trump #InfrastructureScam.
Tell Congress: Block and resist Trump’s #InfrastructureScam. Click below to sign the petition:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/trump_infrastructure_scam?t=8&akid=27084%2E6686651%2EBinVKu
Thank you for speaking out,
Murshed Zaheed, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets
Add your name:
References:
- Nicole Goodkind, “Trump’s Infrastructure Plan is About Making Money, Not Building Roads and Bridges,” Newsweek, Jan. 2, 2018.
- Eric Jaffe, “How Highway Construction Helped Hitler Rise to Power,” CityLab, June 6, 2014.
- Goodkind, “Trump’s Infrastructure Plan is About Making Money, Not Building Roads and Bridges.”
- Christy Goldfuss and Alison Cassady, “Trump’s Infrastructure Scam Will Gut Environmental Protections To Benefit Corporate Polluters,“ Center for American Progress, Jan. 28, 2018.
- Lauren Gardner, “Why Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan could wind up in a ditch,” POLITICO, April 10, 2017.
- Melanie Zanona, “Trump, Congress head for fight over tolls,” The Hill, May 28, 2017.
Robert Reich, “Video: Trump’s Infrastructure Scam,” MoveOn, January 20, 2017.
DEC18
Why Progressives Shouldn’t Fall for the Credo Mobile Scam
Most of you probably have heard about Credo Mobile – its associated Credo Action is supposedly a liberal activist organization that often takes the form of hair-on-fire propagandists for the president’s detractors on the Left. On TPV, I have pointed out Credo Action’s follies on more occasions than one. For an organization that ostensibly bashes large mobile carriers for being anti-causes and anti-consumer though, Credo Mobile is itself a pretty big ripoff.
Let’s say you’re shopping for a mobile carrier. Credo is what’s called a MVNO, or a Mobile Virtual Network Operator – a term that defines service providers that license or lease a carrier’s network and provide service on that network. Credo Mobile uses the Sprint network (perhaps that explains why they stay away from criticizing Sprint’s corporate behavior). If you are a Credo Mobile customer, your network provider is Sprint, but your service and billing are handled by Credo Mobile.
Most MVNOs give their customers a better value for their dollar, though they often include certain compromises. For example, many MVNO’s save on cost by not providing any roaming coverage. Others lack access to their network provider’s super-fast LTE data network. But Credo stands as the only MVNO of note that actually makes your service more expensive.
Let’s compare some plans between Credo and other providers, between Credo and other MVNOs, both with the least expensive and “unlimited” plans. Given that most of America is on smartphones, we will be comparing smartphone plans only, but the comparison would extend just as well to feature phones. We will also compare single-line vs. family (4-lines) plans.
INDIVIDUAL PLANS |
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Credo Mobile |
Sprint |
AT&T |
AT&T BYOD |
Verizon Wireless |
T-Mobile |
Least expensive option |
$75 |
$70 |
$60 |
$45 |
$80 |
$50 |
What it includes |
700 minutes, 300 texts, unlimited data |
Unlimited minutes, texts, 1 GB of data |
Unlimited minutes and texts, 300 MB of data |
Unlimited minutes and texts, 300 MB of data |
Unlimited minutes and texts, 1GB of data |
Unlimited minutes, texts, 500 MB of data |
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“Unlimited” standard option (unlimited minutes, texts, at 2GB data per line) |
$105 |
$80 |
$95 |
$80 |
$100 |
$60 |
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FAMILY PLAN – 4 LINES |
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“Unlimited” standard option (unlimited minutes, texts, at least 2GB data per line) |
$275 |
$240 |
$250 |
$190 |
$250 |
$140 |
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COMPARING TO OTHER MVNOs |
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Credo Mobile |
Boost Mobile (Network: Sprint) |
Solavei (Network: T-Mobile) |
Straight Talk (Network: any) |
AIO Wireless (Network: AT&T) |
Simple Mobile (Network: T-Mobile) |
Least expensive option |
$75 |
$55 |
$39 |
$45 |
$55 |
$40 |
What it includes |
700 minutes, 300 texts, unlimited data |
unlimited talk, text, 2.5 GB of data |
unlimited talk, text, 500 MB of data |
unlimited talk, text, 2.5 GB data |
unlimited talk, text, 2 GB data |
unlimited talk, text, 1 GB data |
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“Unlimited” standard option (unlimited minutes, texts, at least 2GB data per line) |
$105 |
$55 |
$69 |
$45 |
$55 |
$50 |
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Note: T-mobile plans have separate device payment, should you choose to buy phones from them. If you bring your own device, T-mobile does not charge extra for devices. AT&T Bring Your Own Device plans give a $15 per line discount. Credo, Sprint, and Verizon do not seem to have BYOD plans. “Unlimited standard” options include unlimited talk and text. “Data” refers to the amount of high speed data available. |
A few notes on the above chart. The least expensive plans are explanatory; they are the cheapest plans a customer can sign up for with a given provider (leaving aside very tailored plans). Market research shows that some 90% of smartphone customers use less than 2 GB of data, so a particularly large “unlimited” data plan is unlikely to do much good to the average customer (especially on Sprint’s network, which tends to be particularly weak).
As you can see, not only is Credo Mobile’s rates higher than nearly all of its competitors in nearly all the category, compared to other MVNOs, their rates are nearly double or more. And if you’ve got a family with a couple of kids, you are better off going to Verizon, known to be the industry’s most expensive carrier. Laughably, Credo’s plans cost more (significantly more for a family plan) than plans from its network provider, Sprint.
Wait a second, you say. Why is that so funny? Credo Mobile has to buy bandwidth from Sprint and then resell it; isn’t it normal that their plans would cost more? Not at all, as you can see from Boost Mobile’s rates, another Sprint MVNO. Obviously, these virtual network operators don’t pay their network carrier retail rates; they pay wholesale rates to buy bandwidth in bulk. The concept is no different from booksellers ordering books in bulk and still being able to sell those books to customers at or below the cover price.
But but but. They donate a percentage of your bill to progressive nonprofits – that has to count for something! It does, until you realize that their “a percentage” literally means one percent. CREDO Mobile donates 1% of your bill (not the taxes, fees, etc.; just the bill) to those causes. They raise money in other ways as well, but those have nothing to do with your service. Pick nearly ANY plan above and donate the difference to your favorite progressive cause, and you will do better than CREDO – by a rather large factor if you pick the right plan.
CREDO is not a “progressive phone company.” It’s a scam that takes advantage of well meaning progressives and causes.
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