Back in April, an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 workers, in the deadliest mining disaster since the 1970′s. Prior to the explosion, the mine, which is owned by Massey Energy, was cited for thousands of safety violations, but took little corrective action.

Under the Obama administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) — which did next to nothing under President George W. Bush — has been trying to build itself back up. In addition to taking a hard line with other Massey mines, the agency “has targeted 111 mines with high rates of safety violations, simplified the path to declare a ‘pattern of violations’ that allow MSHA to mete out stronger sanctions on troublesome mines and moved to ease a backlog of disputed violations that has tied up enforcement.”

But MSHA still lacks critical powers to shut down especially dangerous mines and to subpoena documents and witnesses during investigations. The late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) wrote legislation addressing these concerns, but it has languished in Congress and, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the incoming chairman of the House Labor Committee doesn’t feel any urgency to get it moving:

The bill passed out of the House Education and Labor Committee on a party line vote in July but never made it to the floor. Now with Republicans taking control of the House, it likely won’t get there in the new Congress. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the likely incoming chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, has said he wants to wait until the investigation into the Upper Big Branch explosion is complete before legislating.

Punting on mine safety would make sense for Kline, as he has shown little but contempt for workers during his time in the House. He has voted against minimum wages increases three times, and is a top advocate of the anti-union Secret Ballot Protection Act. When the House Labor Committee held a hearing on the Upper Big Branch disaster, Kline couldn’t even be bothered to show up.

Even if the bill somehow made it out of the House, it would run into the buzzsaw of the Senate, where new members like Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) don’t believe in any mine safety regulations at all. According to Paul’s theory, mine safety rules will just magically appear, because if they don’t, “no one will apply for those jobs.”

The resurgence of the Labor Department (including MSHA) and its commitment to enforcing labor law has been one of the great successes of the Obama administration. Giving MSHA the tools to do its work effectively is critical, but it seems that such a step may no longer in the cards.

When the Supreme Court invalidated a decades-long ban on corporate spending in federal elections in their Citizens United decision, it was by the narrowest of margins — only one justice. The public is less split on the issue, however. A new poll by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was provided to the Huffington Post, shows that by a double-digit margin, voters want Congress to use a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision and once again restrict corporations from directly spending on elections.

Forty-six percent of voters said that “Congress should consider drastic measures such as a constitutional amendment overturning” Citizens United, while 36 percent disagreed. Only a fifth of voters were undecided on the matter. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has already authored such an amendment, and told the Huffington Post, “I really concluded that the Supreme Court actually put the challenge out to us, here in the Congress. They said…Congress, you have no authority to regulate. And when the Court says that so directly, it only leaves us one choice.” Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) are also behind the amendment, which enjoys the strong support of many law professors and former attorneys general.

Short of a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, the DISCLOSE Act offers another possible remedy to the worst aspects of Citizens United. Today in Roll Call, Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank wrote a stinging op-ed calling on Republicans to support DISCLOSE:

The first is the failure of any Republican Senator to step up and support the DISCLOSE Act, to bring sunlight to the outrageous, anonymous huge funders who played a major role in the 2010 campaigns, hiding behind the cloak of 501(c)(4)s run by groups cynically manipulating weak IRS enforcement of the law. [...]

So where are the previous champions of campaign finance reform? Where is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose greatest legislative accomplishment was given a sharp stick in the eye by a 5-4 decision on the Supreme Court? Where are previous supporters of reform — and professed supporters of disclosure — such as Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.)? And most important, where is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who has always been an independent voice, whose Snowe-Jeffords amendment to the campaign reform law was the provision most assaulted by the Citizens United case, who stood up to immense pressure from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican leaders in 2002 to do the right thing?

With this kind of pressure building, PCCC cofounder Adam Green thinks it’s a ripe time for action. “It’s time to stop thinking small-bore. The solution to Citizens United is not merely disclosure, it’s to overturn Citizens United — and even last November’s Republican-skewed electorate agrees,” he told the Huffington Post.

Last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) – a man ThinkProgress readers are familiar with – took to the House floor to bemoan the “insidious” tax on corporations. “We can compete with anybody,” Gohmert declared, “if you take off that insidious tax” on business. Watch it:

Gohmert’s defense of corporations are not the words of a single rogue congressman. Rather, sticking up for the big guy is an orthodoxy that pervades the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker (R) of Wisconsin has pledged to repeal the state’s corporate income tax. Sen.-elect Marco Rubio (R-FL) wants to slash the federal corporate income tax. And Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposes completely eliminating the tax in his radical Roadmap for America.

Conservatives’ attempts to portray corporations as victims in this economy is dubious for two reasons. First, despite right-wing misinformation, American corporations actually already pay far less in taxes than those in other industrialized nations:

Source: OECD

In fact, because of tax havens and other loopholes, many mega-corporations actually pay little to no taxes. The most recent high-profile example is Google, which has used income shifting and other tactics to reduce its effective tax rate to 2.4 percent. General Electric went a step even further. The company not only avoided all corporate income taxes last year, but actually recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.

Secondly, despite the myths that corporate taxes are “strangling” business, and that President Obama is “anti-business,” a report released today from the Commerce Department shows that American companies actually brought in record profits during the last quarter. With an annual profit rate of $1.66 trillion, the third quarter of this year produced “the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago.”

Still record profits are likely not enough to convince conservatives that corporations have it just fine in the U.S.. Even apologizing to mega-corporations that just dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico isn’t enough. Right-wingers like Gohmert and Ryan will not be satisfied until we give tax-free status to all corporations.

Since they can’t realistically repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law due to President Obama’s veto pen, Republicans have been gearing up to slow down the law’s implementation by hassling regulators with hearing appearances, questionnaires, and resolutions of disapproval. To that end, Reps. Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sent a letter yesterday to the newly-constituted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which operates as part of the Treasury Department until July 2011), voicing concerns about the Bureau’s supposed lack of oversight.

The lawmakers took particular aim at Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the special adviser to the President who is currently leading the Bureau, saying they planned to scrutinize everything she does:

“There is a clear absence of accountability and transparency” about the activities Treasury is undertaking to establish the consumer bureau, the letters said…The lawmakers signaled they planned to scrutinize Ms. Warren’s every move, writing that they “are concerned that Professor Warren will be approaching this task without any experience managing — or creating — an organization of this scale and importance.”

Bachus and Biggert asked for a response to their concerns by January 10th, and according to the Wall Street Journal, “the reports requested by the lawmakers will likely lead to hearings.”

As the Center for Public Integrity reported, Republicans have a handful of options available for slow-walking financial reform, among them “peppering agencies with letters and with oversight hearings.” And they’re keying in on Warren as the focal point of their efforts, despite her vast qualifications for the position and the lack of substantive complaints against her that the GOP has mustered.

Of course, transparency and accountability are valid concerns, and Treasury should be completely open about the process of setting up the Bureau. But since Republicans are staunchly opposed to the Bureau’s very existence, this looks more like an effort to bog its employees down in paperwork and appearances on Capitol Hill, rather than a good-faith effort at oversight.

The way in which Republicans are treating Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) chief Don Berwick is illustrative. Last week, Berwick appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to ostensibly answer questions about the agency’s progress in implementing the Affordable Care Act. Instead of using their time to ask productive questions, Republicans simply griped about how they didn’t have enough questioning time.

As more of letters like that sent by Bachus and Bigger head out the door, and the almost inevitable hearings begin to take place, we’ll be able to see whether House Republicans actually have an interest in implementing Dodd-Frank in a responsible manner, or if they’re simply intending to try crippling the ability of the Bureau to get off the ground.

Last week, top Republicans in the House and the Senate called for ending the Federal Reserve’s mandate to ensure full employment. “It is time that we work to clarify the mandate of the Federal Reserve. Providing our central bank with a clear and explicit focus on keeping inflation low will serve America better than the broader mandate approach we have today,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN).

Since then, a slew of Republicans have hopped on board, criticizing the Fed’s recent policy actions, even though they represent the last option for boosting job-creation (because the GOP won’t move forward with further fiscal stimulus). “Basically the Fed is driving a car with two feet, one on the brakes and one on the gas pedal, and it’s a real jerky ride,” said incoming House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) agreed, saying “I think the Fed should be focused on monetary policy and clearly monetary policy has an impact on unemployment, but I don’t think that should be a driving issue in their decision-making.”

On CNBC today, Corker went so far as to predict that the Fed’s employment mandate will get whittled away “in the near future“:

CORKER: I agree that we need to do some things that we haven’t been doing, but that doesn’t mean if we don’t there ought to be another body out there that acts independently if we don’t. That’s inappropriate. I think, again, I think you’re going to see a narrowing of the mandate in the near future. I think people realize it’s inappropriate. I think that’s what’s going to happen.

Q: Before 2012?

CORKER: Well, we’ll see.

Watch it:

As economist Mark Thoma summed up, “Republicans oppose fiscal policy — including things such as extending unemployment compensation and job creation initiatives to help to overcome severe conditions (though tax cuts for the wealthy are okay) — and they oppose monetary policy that tries to lower the unemployment rate. So, in essence, they oppose doing anything to help the unemployed during a recession.” And their wild concerns about inflation clash with the fact that there is currently exceedingly little inflation.

Not only does the GOP’s criticism of recent Fed actions to boost employment evince a severe lack of concern for the country’s sluggish rate of job creation, but as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) pointed out, it also aligns Republicans with foreign central banks against American interests. “Debating American economic policy is one thing; joining in a broad attack by foreign central banks, who insist that America somehow must subordinate our own legitimate economic needs to their currency requirements, is quite another,” he said.

Over the weekend, CNN’s Ed Henry drummed up the idea that President Obama should to go to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest right-wing big business lobby, to give a speech as a “peace offering.” The Chamber, which helped kill President Obama’s initiatives on climate change, clean energy, labor reform, and lobbied against Obama’s reforms on health care and Wall Street reform, also funneled $75 million into helping elect Republicans in the midterm elections. “It would be particularly good timing for Obama to try and set the agenda and tee up his State of the Union address later in the month, not to mention hit the reset button on his fractured relationship with the business community,” wrote Henry, eagerly cheering on the move. Yesterday, the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein confirmed that administration officials are indeed interested in reaching out to the Chamber.

However, Henry, in advocating the speech, promulgates falsehoods manufactured by the Chamber. First, Henry claims that Obama’s visit to the Chamber would help “bury the hatchet” with the “business community.” The Chamber does not represent the entire American business community — not by a long shot. Although the Chamber has misrepresented itself and claimed to represent 3 million businesses (later modified to 300,000 after a Mother Jones exposé), in reality it actually represents a small group of multinational corporations. In 2008, half of its donations came from just 45 corporate donors. In 2009, nearly half of the Chamber’s money came from a single donation from the health insurance industry trade association. Moreover, the Chamber doesn’t appear to truly care about jobs or small businesses — evidenced by the fact that the Chamber killed legislation to create millions of new clean energy jobs and expand America’s competitive advantage in clean energy technology.

As ThinkProgress has noted, journalists often give undue credit to the Chamber as the “voice for business” simply because the Chamber is an old institution, they associate it with separate and distinct local Chambers that actually represent small businesses, and because the U.S. Chamber has one of the most sophisticated media outreach programs in Washington, D.C. But the Chamber does not deserve such respect, either from journalists or President Obama. Despite the “U.S.” in the Chamber’s name, the Chamber has consistently placed the priorities of its select corporate members over the interest of the American people:

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has long opposed women’s rights. For example, the Chamber lobbied against Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) bill to allow victims of rape to file a lawsuit against their defense contractor employers. The Chamber also lobbied against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and numerous other bills to address systematic gender inequality.

– The U.S Chamber of Commerce has been the driving force against consumer, worker, and public safety laws for nearly a century. This year, it lobbied against regulating BPA, a chemical found to cause birth defects and genital mutations. The Chamber has a history of fighting work place safety regulations, the Clean Air Act, the Mine Safety Act, and other fundamental programs used to strengthen American society.

— The U.S. Chamber of Commerce helped President Bush in his attempt to privatize Social Security and his drive to deregulate Wall Street. Even during President Roosevelt’s era, the Chamber lobbied against the New Deal agenda, especially the passage of Social Security. After its members helped cause the Great Depression, the Chamber still fought against regulating Wall Street as well as measures such as unemployment insurance. Chamber officials charged that Roosevelt was attempting to “Sovietize America.”

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is responsible for many of the policies that have made America the most unequal in terms of income/wealth distribution in the industrialized world. On tax policy, the Chamber has pushed efforts to repeal the estate tax while helping to pass the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Corporate tax loopholes promoted by the Chamber ensure that corporations like ExxonMobil pay zero corporate income taxes while regular American workers foot much of the Treasury’s bill. The Chamber also opposed the creation of a minimum wage, and has lobbied against nearly every increase in the federal minimum wage.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t even necessarily represent American businesses. As first reported by ThinkProgress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently began a fundraising program soliciting foreign corporations to give to the Chamber’s account that in turn was used to run attack ads during the midterm elections. The Chamber admitted that it fundraises from foreign donors, but has refused to reveal how it finances its political campaign expenditures. ThinkProgress noted that the Chamber has aided its foreign members by lobbying this year to kill a bill to close tax loopholes for businesses that ship jobs overseas, and has even sponsored seminars to teach businesses how to ship their jobs to places like China.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has consistently sided with polluters and the fossil fuel industry. Not only has the Chamber challenged the science of climate change, but after BP’s oil spill, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue said American taxpayers should pay for the clean up.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce practices the politics of division and hate when it serves their corporate interests. Throughout 2010, the Chamber worked closely with hate television star Glenn Beck, who calls President Obama a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Top Chamber lobbyists met secretly with Beck at a meeting in June to plan the midterm elections, and Beck has sponsored on-air fundraisers for the Chamber. Similarly, the Chamber joined Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) to eagerly brand political opponents — like labor organizers and liberal intellectuals — as communists during McCarthy’s red scare.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has worked to give corporations unfettered control of government. For instance, the Chamber successfully filed an amicus brief in the Citizens United case to roll back nearly a century of campaign finance laws. Because of the Chamber’s efforts, corporations can spend unlimited amounts in American elections. Now the Chamber is attempting to repeal legislation aimed at discouraging American businesses from bribing foreign governments.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fought every attempt at health reform, from Truman to Johnson to Nixon to Clinton to Obama’s efforts to help the American people gain access to quality health care. The Chamber even tried to stop the passage of Medicare under President Johnson.

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce often places the profits of its member companies over American foreign policy objectives. Last year, the Chamber lobbied against President Obama’s efforts to place economic sanctions on Iran. In 1941, the Chamber was one of the most outspoken opponents of intervening in World War II (Chamber officials feared that war would give Roosevelt more power and wartime spending would lead to higher deficits, then higher taxes).

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a sordid history with civil rights. It opposed key planks of the Civil Rights Act, and lobbied against the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Recently, the Chamber paid for campaign advertising to help Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), who told ThinkProgress he too opposed the ADA.

If Obama chooses to address the Chamber, he should draw a line in the sand, as Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) did when he spoke to the Chamber in October. President Obama should work with any stakeholder when it serves the American people and America’s best interests. If he chooses to make peace with the Chamber, it should be on mutual terms and on policies which benefit America — not only the Chamber’s tiny clique of corporate members.