On the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s horrendous Citizens United ruling, Al Franken took to the Senate floor to lambaste the decision and urge legislative action to overturn it. Below is video of Franken’s statement, as well as a few excerpts.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision, Citizens United, and with it, they gave corporations a blank check to utterly destroy our political system.  I’d like to take a few minutes this afternoon to tell you about the practical impact of this decision, how it threatens our democracy, and why we need to do something about it….

Read More

The House GOP tried really hard to avoid passing a middle-class tax cut. Most likely, they would have jumped at the chance to give that money to the rich, but they just could never get interested in working for the middle class. Eventually, though, a frustrated John Boehner reluctantly agreed to extend the payroll tax credit for the middle class.

Before Boehner caved, Karl Rove advised Republicans that this fight was not a good one for them:

Republicans “have lost the optics on it,” Rove told Fox News, “the question now is how do the Republicans get out of it.”

Rove is certainly right on that count. The “optics” are absolutely horrendous when doing something to help the 99 Percent is seen as a serious defeat for your party. Boehner and the GOP fully deserve the beating they’ve taken on this issue, for turning a no-brainer into a months-long battle royale. It’s truly amazing how hard they fight to keep the middle class down.

The House was supposed to vote last night on a Senate bill to extend a middle-class payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance benefits, but Speaker John Boehner chickened out at the last minute. Why? Because some Republicans didn’t want to vote against the middle class, but Boehner wanted to make absolutely sure the bill didn’t pass.

In a stunning move, the House Republican leadership postponed a vote planned for late tonight on a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits that passed the Senate with a huge bipartisan majority. Republicans planned to reject the Senate bill today in a gambit to force the upper chamber to come back from recess and pass a longer term extension. But it seemed House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) caucus wasn’t as united as he expected, as there was “a desire among some rank-and-file lawmakers to cast an affirmative vote rather than a negative one” favored by Boehner, Politico reports.

Now, Boehner may resort to procedural tricks to help ensure his desired outcome when the House votes on the package tomorrow. The House will most likely vote on a motion to reject the Senate bill, instead of regular up-or-down vote. That way, Republicans won’t have to outright vote against the payroll tax holiday and Boehner doesn’t risk the measure accidentally passing in case he miscounts his votes. [Think Progress]

Is it just me, or is Boehner going to absurd lengths to screw the middle class? This sort of procedural nonsense is the worst sort of cynicism, and it’s aimed at preventing a tax cut that’s important for the consumers that drive our economy.

The two-month extension of the payroll tax cut that Boehner is blocking isn’t at all ideal; it should be done for a full year. However, it’s the Republicans’ own fault that we have to do it this way. And now they won’t even give the middle class two stinking months.

Yesterday, Republicans rejected a measure that would have extended unemployment benefits and a middle-class payroll tax cut for two months and allowed Congress to recess. The GOP is widely being ridiculed for the vote. And they’re deserving of ridicule — but not for this particular vote. Though I rarely say this, I agree with John Boehner:

“It’s time to just stop, do our work, resolve the differences and extend this for one year,” Mr. Boehner said. “How can you have tax policy for two months?”

This is very true. Congress should just get their act together and pass a one-year extension. When tens of millions of Americans are hurting from the recession, I don’t see why Congress should find that difficult.

For all Boehner’s apparent earnestness, though, let’s not forget that it’s the Republicans who have held up the package in the first place, insisting that it be paid for with cuts to Medicare and unemployment benefits. That’s why they deserve our ridicule. Not for voting against a temporary extension, but for once again putting the rich above the rest of us.

The Republicans don’t believe a massive tax cut for the rich needs to be paid for. A small tax cut for the middle class, though? That must be fully paid for with benefit cuts for the middle class.

Last night, news outlets were reporting that Democrats will cave on paying for an extension of the payroll tax cut with a surtax on millionaires. Even worse, Josh Marshall speculates that instead of a millionaire surtax, it might be paid for with immediate cuts to Medicare.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but why exactly does a small tax cut for working middle-class families need to be paid for, while a massive tax cut for the rich doesn’t?

What exactly is it about the payroll tax cut proposal that the Republican object to? Is it that it would help the middle class instead of the super-rich? Or is it that it would help the economy recover? Either way, it’s abhorrent.

Most of Washington — including a number of Democrats — can’t be bothered to lift a finger for the 99 Percent. In fact, they demand ever-greater sacrifices from the 99 Percent to fund larger tax cuts for the super-rich. Fortunately, Keith Ellison and the Progressive Caucus are different. Ellison is a chief sponsor of a bill that would create over 5 million jobs.

The plan proposed by Ellison and the Progressive Caucus rejects the foolish Washington consensus that austerity will somehow restore the economy. That’s pure nonsense — in fact, it will be an enormous drag on our economy. Instead, we need to invest heavily in stimulating the economy. Here are a few of the bill’s proposals and their estimated impacts on the economy:

• Enacting the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act sponsored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) would boost employment by approximately 1.1 million jobs in each of fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
• Reinstating the Making Work Pay tax credit for 2012 and 2013 would boost employment by 409,000 in fiscal 2012 and 532,000 jobs in fiscal 2013.
• Defusing the automatic spending cuts currently scheduled under the Budget Control Act would boost employment by more than 1.1 million jobs in fiscal 2013. [Economic Policy Institute]

That last point is the most important. Researchers at Goldman Sachs have estimated that short-sighted austerity measures will cost us a full percentage point in terms of GDP growth next year. It is pure insanity that we’re planning policies that would cost us over a million jobs in the middle of a recession. Ellison’s bill fixes that.