Corporate front groups and large business trade associations are funneling their resources into defeating health reform. Even though health reform will lower costs for small businesses and boost worker productivity economy-wide, it appears that corporate entities influenced by major polluters are hoping that the defeat of health care legislation will slow President Obama’s agenda and derail their true enemy: clean energy reform.

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which is largely backed by the coal industry, candidly revealed this strategy in a letter released today to Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Robert Byrd (D-WV). The Chamber of Commerce demanded that the senators use “their clout and seniority” to obstruct the health reform debate until cap and trade legislation is taken off the table and the EPA is barred from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. As Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette noted, Rockefeller has already rejected a similar proposal of blocking health reform unless the EPA stops reviewing mountaintop removal permits. The coal lobby has also pressured West Virginia state legislators to pass resolutions opposing clean energy reform.

The coal industry’s selfish push to block health reform displays how little it cares about West Virginia and the communities where coal is burned for energy. Not only do 19 percent of West Virginians lack health insurance, but coal is literally killing people:

– The American Lung Association reports that there are 24,000 premature deaths every year due to coal power plant pollution. In addition, the ALA research estimates that coal pollution causes over 550,000 asthma attacks, 38,000 heart attacks and 12,000 hospital admissions.

– A report by Physicians for Social Responsibility found that coal combustion releases mercury, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health. These coal pollutants are associated with increased congestive heart failure, lung cancer, infant mortality, stunted lung development, and Ischemic stroke, among other diseases.

The national Chamber of Commerce is also fighting health reform tooth and nail. Like the West Virginia Chamber, the U.S. Chamber is dominated by coal and polluter interests and denies the science underpinning climate change. The U.S. Chamber’s extreme approached forced pro-clean energy companies Apple, Levi Strauss & Company, Mohawk Paper and the utilities Pacific Gas and Electric, Exelon and PNM Resources to resign from the Chamber. By killing both clean energy and health reform, U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue may be hoping to protect his own wallet. Donohue sits on the board of a major coal industry player, Union Pacific.

Indeed, one of the most powerful corporate front groups, Americans for Prosperity, is focusing its efforts on defeating health reform. Although AFP is backed by oil industry giant David Koch, his ultimate goal of stopping clean energy appears to begin with stopping health reform.

With House Democrats seriously considering proposing a financial transactions tax (FTT) to pay for a new jobs creation package, the financial services industry has gone on the defensive. The premise behind a financial transactions tax is that it is so small (a fraction of a percentage point) that a normal investor who is buying a stock to hold is barely going to notice it. But an investment bank like Goldman Sachs, which is involved in lots of high-frequency trading, is going to pay a pretty penny. It’s estimated that an FTT can raise about $150 billion annually.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a leading lobbying organization for banks and securities firms, said that such a tax would literally stall the stock market:

Imposing a tax on financial transactions is the wrong idea at the wrong time. Such a tax would likely result in a stalling of the stock market, cutting off companies’ ability to raise capital to fund new investments in plants and equipment, and thus create jobs. Furthermore, it would directly and detrimentally affect millions of Americans by imposing a tax on their savings such as mutual funds, just as they are seeing their investment assets regain value.

An analyst in Washington at Concept Capital, which advises brokers and dealers, told clients that “we cannot completely dismiss the slight possibility it could be part of a House jobs bill,” but vowed that it has “virtually no chance in the Senate.” Even right-wing tea party organizers Americans for Prosperity got into the act, saying that the FTT would be a “disaster.”

Contrary to SIFMA’s assertion, under the proposed plan, the tax would be refunded “for those involving assets kept in individual retirement accounts, education savings accounts and health savings accounts” and the first $100,000 in annual transactions. So “millions of Americans” would not see their savings accounts slammed.

But furthermore, an FTT will make the financial system allocate capital more efficiently, as trading for the simple sake of trading will be more expensive. Center for Economic and Policy Research co-director Dean Baker estimates that an FTT could free up more than $60 billion a year in capital and labor for productive uses.

Finally, I’m not sure where SIFMA gets off suggesting that an FTT would stall the stock market, as the United Kingdom already has both a tax on stock trades and a vibrant stock exchange. Wall Street was saved by taxpayers to the tune of $700 billion dollars, plus untold amounts of guarantees against losses and cheap money from the Federal Reserve. An FTT — the revenues from which could be put towards programs or deficit reduction — seems only fair.