This isn’t just wrong and contrary to Supreme Court precedent, it is disastrously wrong. In this case, Santorum, Romney and Boehner all believe that conservative Catholic bishops should be able immunize themselves from a contraception regulation, but the truth is that there is no limit on these three men’s misreading of the Constitution. Indeed, as superlawyer David Boies explained on MSNBC last night, if one employer can immunize themselves from one law simply by claiming that it violates their religion, then any employer can use this tactic to immunize themselves from any law. Boies cites the minimum wage, safe working conditions, workman’s compensation, age discrimination laws & taxes as examples of laws that employers could ignore simply by claiming they object to them. Watch it:

Santorum, Romney and their co-ideologues like to claim they are defending “religious liberty,” but the truth is that they are really fighting against the rule of law. It cannot be the case that employers can treat their workers however they choose simply because they object to the law requiring them to behave otherwise.

But missed in this debate is the fact Boehner and McConnell’s own health insurance plans covers contraception, something they now want to deny to others.

Since 1998, every insurer participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) — including members of Congress — has had access to comprehensive contraceptive coverage, including emergency contraception, such as the morning after pill. Republican lawmakers now want to prevent access to the coverage they enjoy to employees of religious organizations who may not be of that religion or who disagree with anti-contraception doctrine (89 percent of Catholics say contraception decision should be theirs, not the church’s).

The trade association “actively lobbies against legislation that would place unfair restrictions on salon businesses.” Boehner no doubt earned the group’s gratitude with his staunch opposition to inclusion of tanning salon taxes in the Affordable Care Act.

Ironically, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who famously tweeted to Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi that he would not tax her tanning bed received no contributions from the PAC this cycle or last. (HT: @lukerosiak)

by Greg Hanscom, reposted from Grist

It was apparently not enough to obliterate funding for bike lanes and walking paths and kids trying to get to school. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to keep our tax dollars from paying for public transit as well.

Earlier this week, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) unveiled a draft transportation bill that would cut all designated funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, the Safe Routes to School program, and grants that have encouraged “complete streets” projects. Still, it looked like the more egregious provisions would be stripped away as the legislation — titled “The American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act” — ran through the lawmaking process. And at least the bill maintained the country’s longstanding, if weak, commitment to public transportation.

Then, Wednesday night, Boehner and the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee proposed killing a longstanding rule that sets aside a portion of the gas tax to fund trains and buses and other public transportation systems.

“We were all expecting some weird stuff,” says David Goldberg with the nonprofit Transportation for America, which has raised the alarm over the latest move. “But we weren’t expecting this now.”

In his attempt to reverse a longstanding commitment to transit (the “mass transit account” was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan), Boehner may have gone too far. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials — that is, the people who build this country’s roads — has come out against the move, and there are rumors that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may oppose it.

What could Boehner possibly be thinking?

It’s not unimaginable that he really does see trains and buses as a threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of getting where we’re going in a great big hurry. But as always in Washington, there’s political calculus involved. Boehner may just be trying to score points by handing Obama a “jobs” bill that the president will not sign. (If this is indeed the game, it’s ironic: Transit projects generate more jobs than roads do.)

Lest you think that all the Republicans in the House are enjoying this particular game of political football, several of them, led by Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.), tried to amend the draft bill to restore funding for bike and pedestrian projects and Safe Routes to School. Despite backing from Democrats, they were voted down. We’ll be watching to see of any of them step up now to defend mass transit.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, a more balanced version of the transportation bill has passed committee with unanimous bipartisan support. Apparently not everyone is playing games.

In the House, the antics are bound to continue for another month or more, as Congress has until the end of March to pass a new transportation bill. But Boehner, at least, has made it clear where he stands — and it’s not on some sissy metro line.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that the mandate that health insurance plans provide contraceptives at no charge “violates our Constitution,” because it forces Catholics to violate their consciences.

“I think this mandate violates our Constitution,” Boehner said during his weekly news conference Thursday.

Boehner said that there was “a lot of opposition” to the new regulations enacted by the Department of Health and Human Services, because it forces Catholics to provide access to contraceptives despite the fact that the Catholic Church holds that contraception is immoral.

It’s important to note that the regulation exempts churches that provide health insurance to their employees and nothing in the regulations require health providers with religious objections to proscribe contraception. Additionally, it’s not exactly true that “Catholics” believe what Boehner claims they believe. Although the conservative United States Conference of Catholic Bishops does indeed object to these regulations, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use contraception.

Boehner’s constitutional analysis, moreover, is completely absurd. There is nothing in the Constitution saying that a person does not have to comply with the law simply because they object to it — if this were actually true, anyone could immunize themselves from paying taxes simply by claiming a moral objection to doing so. Nor does the Constitution allow people to violate the law simply because they have a religious objection to it.

The seminal Supreme Court opinion establishing this point was written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia — who, coincidentally, is Catholic. Scalia explains that “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” In other words, so long as a law does not single out Catholics (or any other faith) for inferior treatment, the law applies universally to everyone.

Ultimately, however, it is not surprising that Boehner is once again mouthing off about the Constitution without understanding what it actually says. The Speaker, of course, is a proud supporter of the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that a leading conservative judge that the case against the ACA has no basis “in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.”

WALLACE: Will the House pass a budget this year, and will it have serious entitlement reform in it again such as last year’s proposal by Paul Ryan for premium supports (ph) as a way to change and reform Medicare?

BOEHNER: Well, that was one option on how we could save Medicare. There are other ideas. Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden, the Democrat senator from Oregon, came up with a bipartisan proposal. The idea here is that we’ve got to make changes to Medicare. Otherwise, it will not be there for seniors who count on it. So we will do a serious budget. But also, remember this: on Tuesday, it will be 1,000 days since the United States Senate passed a budget. One thousand days, and they have yet to pass a budget. How do you deal with the long-term fiscal problems that we have if you refuse to come to an agreement on a budget?

WALLACE: So I want to make it clear, because there had been some thought that maybe because of the hits that you guys took last year, you weren’t going to pass a budget. You are going to pass a budget again this year?

BOEHNER: Of course we are.

Watch it:

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) echoed Boehner’s sentiment at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday, telling Reporters, “We’re not backing off on the kinds of reforms that we’ve advocated, but we have to write it.” “We’ve done more to normalize the idea of premium support than anything at all. We’re confident that these are the right policies. There’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that’s occurring on doing premium support reform to Medicare is the best way to save Medicare.”

Only one Democrat in the Senate, Ron Wyden (D-OR), has publicly embraced a watered down version of Ryan’s premium support proposal, but the plan — which would preserve traditional Medicare as an option for seniors and offer premium support credits that would do a better job of keeping up with health care costs — was rejected by Congressional Democrats and the White House. They argued that no version of premium support can achieve real savings without adverse consequences for beneficiaries, noting that the proposal could significantly shift costs to beneficiaries and fail to fully prevent private health insurance plans from attracting healthier beneficiaries and driving up premiums for those who remain in traditional Medicare.

In fact, there is very little evidence to suggest that private plans have or can do a better job of lowering spending. Medicare’s sheer size and bargaining clout have contributed to its greater success in controlling health care costs and the program has introduced market innovations and payment reforms that were later adopted by private industry. The Affordable Care Act will build on this structure by investing in new demonstration projects and payment reforms that will reward providers for delivering care more efficiently and — ultimately — lower the rate of growth in health care spending.

The agreement resolved the last stalemate in a year of bitter congressional fighting that earned lawmakers their lowest approval ratings in recent memory.

In exchange for supporting the 60-day patch, Republicans secured minor face-saving concessions from Senate leaders, who had already passed a two-month deal on an overwhelming vote of 89 to 10. Senate leaders had balked at the House’s demand to restart talks over the holidays on a full-year extension of the tax cut.

The Senate agreed to make a technical change to the payroll tax reporting requirements, designed to lessen the burden on small businesses of implementing the two-month deal.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) promised he would appoint a conference committee to take up negotiations after New Year’s Day on ways to pay for a full-year tax cut.

Both chambers will pass the plan by unanimous consent so long as no member shows up to voice opposition in person, which lets the deal pass even though most members have gone home. There was no opposition to the deal in the Senate Friday morning. The two-month extension gives House and Senate leaders time to negotiate for a yearlong extension after the holiday recess. “I am grateful that the voices of reason have prevailed,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement.

But so far, a few House freshmen have threatened to stop the deal. Freshman Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said he was “not yet sure” if he would protest the deal, and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) told CNN’s John King Thursday night, “I’m not so sure I’m not going to do that,” when asked if he’d drive to Washington, D.C. to stop the deal.

Boehner acknowledged the pressure he has felt, telling reporters Thursday that “I talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who say we don’t like the two-month extension and if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people even if it’s not exactly what we want.”

Boehner received pressure from his own party — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on the House to pass the two month extension yesterday — as well as the public. After the White House asked people to say what $40 — the average amount an American worker would lose per paycheck without the extension — would mean to them, thousands of people responded on Twitter using the #40dollars hashtag.

McConnell’s statement further isolates Boehner, who has found little support from fellow Republicans in his position, and gives President Obama new ammunition with which to attack Boehner in an upcoming speech today.

Boehner initially appeared to support the Senate’s bill, but quickly backtracked in an “apparent breakdown between Boehner and McConnell.” McConnell had remained silent on the payroll tax dispute since the Senate passed its version with overwhelming bipartisan support last week, likely could have avoided delivering a rare intra-party rebuke longer.

But Boehner’s intransigence, which risks raising taxes on 160 million Americans next year, is increasingly hurting the GOP, according to many leaders in the party, and perhaps McConnell felt he had to speak up before more damage was done. As The Hill reports today:

Senate Republicans are worried the standoff over extending the payroll tax holiday could hurt their chances of winning the upper chamber next year.

Senior Republican aides have made clear in private conversations that their bosses are not happy with how House Republicans have handled a bipartisan Senate compromise to extend tax relief for two months.

“It’s not helping,” a veteran Senate Republican strategist said of the House GOP fight against the Senate package. “Senate Republicans are tired of paying the price for the lack of legislative thoughtfulness in the House.”

Indeed, House Republicans have drawn the public ire of Karl Rove, the Wall Street Journal, conservative pundits, and five Senate Republicans, while they’ve found little support among the GOP 2012 presidential candidates. It’s still unclear what the endgame for the payroll tax issue will be, but it’s looking increasingly like it won’t be one in which Boehner comes out winning.

Hoyer continued talking undeterred, saying, “You’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers [and] the unemployed.” “We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing this issue of critical importance to this country,” Hoyer added.

Moments later, the mic appeared to cut out. A few seconds after that, the video feed switched away from the House floor to a still image of the Capitol Dome. It appears someone in House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) office cut the feed, as C-SPAN tweeted afterwards: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does.”

Watch it:

A number of Republican senators have slammed House Republicans for blocking the extension, but on Fox News this morning, Romney wouldn’t say whether he sided with the House or Senate, dismissing the issue as an “internal battle.” “I’d like to see this payroll tax holiday extended,” Romney said, without saying for how long.

Later, on MSNBC, Romney downplayed the debate as being “deep in the weeds.” He offered only platitudes about hoping that the House and Senate “come together” to “get the job done.” “I’m not going to throw gasoline on what is already a fire,” he added. Watch it:

While Romney won’t take a side in the debate, at least he now acknowledges that the payroll tax cut needs to be extended. Previously, he had dismissed it as just a “temporary little Band-Aid.”

– Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH): “We are committed to the House-passed bill, including the boiler MACT language.”

– House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) told The Hill that “he’d seek inclusion of the boiler MACT language in a final deal.”

– Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA): “We are hoping that does stay in.”

– Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH): “There were voices saying we should amend the Senate bill and put boiler MACT back in and send it back to them last night.”

– Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA): “Certainly I’d hope that we’d be able to get it in but, that being said, I understand the fluidity of negotiations and we’ll just have to see.”

Boehner, Upton, Murphy, LaTourette, and Griffith have received a combined $1,789,000 in contributions from the coal industry since 1999.

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.

A tax cut for 160 million Americans and unemployment benefits for millions of others hangs in the balance.

Boehner dismissed as “nonsense” the State Department’s stated need to take more than two months to re-evaluate the impact of changing the pipeline’s Nebraska route. Plans for a new route have not even been submitted yet. Denying the obvious that the 60-day deadline would short-circuit oversight of a risky foreign oil pipeline, Boehner tried to make the oil-industry gift an election-year issue for President Obama:

GREGORY: White House officials I’ve talked to say you are guaranteeing that he’ll say no to this because the State Department has already said they can’t get the review done for the extension in that amount of time.

BOEHNER: That’s nonsense. David, it’s been going on for three years. All the studies are done. It’s gone through every part of the regulatory process. The only issue here is that the president doesn’t want to have to make this decision until after his election. Twenty thousand direct jobs, 100,000 indirect jobs, to build a pipeline from Canada down to the Gulf that would help our energy security, help produce more energy here in North America. This is the right thing to do, the American people support it, and the president shouldn’t continue just to put this off for his own election convenience.

Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate kept the Keystone XL provision in a Saturday vote, despite President Obama’s earlier veto threat, which he appears to have rescinded.

Transcript:

GREGORY: I want to ask you about this pipeline. I want to remind our viewers what we’re talking about here. This is a proposed extension of an oil pipeline that starts up in Canada, goes down to the Gulf of Mexico. You want to say, look, we’ll extend it for a year if the president makes a quicker decision on this pipeline. White House officials I’ve talked to say you are guaranteeing that he’ll say no to this because the State Department has already said they can’t get the review done for the extension in that amount of time.

BOEHNER: That’s nonsense. David, it’s been going on for three years. All the studies are done. It’s gone through every part of the regulatory process. The only issue here is that the president doesn’t want to have to make this decision until after his election. Twenty thousand direct jobs, 100,000 indirect jobs, to build a pipeline from Canada down to the Gulf that would help our energy security, help produce more energy here in North America. This is the right thing to do, the American people support it, and the president shouldn’t continue just to put this off for his own election convenience.

GREGORY: But you think the State Department was misrepresenting the fact that they can’t do a review when there’s not even a proposed extension that’s finalized yet by the company involved?

BOEHNER: This was about to be approved last summer. So waiting and waiting and waiting is not the answer here. It is time to proceed with the pipeline.

GREGORY: If you really wanted this and not just the political issue, wouldn’t you make it possible for the president to have as much time as he needs to make the decision?

BOEHNER: No. He’s already had ample time. He’s just kicking this can down the road, same Washington nonsense because it may anger some people in his base.

But it looks like the massive concessions Democrats made won’t be enough for House Republicans to allow the continuation of the tax holiday. Appearing on Meet the Press today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he and his members oppose the Senate bill. While there are fewer than two weeks before the end of the year, when the current tax holiday expires, Boehner said he wants to resolve major issues between the House and Senate bills in a joint House-Senate conference:

BOEHNER: Well, it’s pretty clear that I, and our members, oppose the Senate bill. … How can you do tax policy for two months? So, we really do believe it’s time for the Senate to work with the House, to complete our business for the year. We’ve got two weeks to get this done. let’s do it the right way.

HOST: So you’re suggesting start over, make this a one year extension. Should the Senate start from scratch?

BOEHNER: No, what I’m suggesting is this. The House has passed its bill, the Senate has passed its bill. Under the Constitution, when we have these disagreements, there could be a formal conference between both chambers to resolve the differences.

Watch it:

Of course, the danger with this route is that the House and Senate, controlled by two different parties, may not be able to come to an agreement before the tax cut expires. As Congress has prove time and again, it’s not the greatest at coming to bipartisan agreements on deadline, let alone over the holiday week. If that happens, almost all working Americans — 160 million people — will see their taxes go up next year.

Boehner appears to be catering to a conservative lawmakers in his caucus, who “voiced extreme opposition” to the Senate bill in a conference call this weekend. According to The Hill, Boehner “spoke approvingly of the deal as a win for the GOP,” but the rest of his leadership team, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), opposed it, along with most rank-and-file Republicans. If Boehner approved of the plan before the call, the dissent clearly seems to have influenced him as he said he personally opposes the Senate bill today.

It’s rather remarkable that Republicans would even threaten to kill the payroll tax holiday, as their primary domestic policy agenda is cutting taxes. If the holiday expires, the middle-class will be especially hard hit, as the cut disproportionately helped them.

GOP Threaten to Kill Tax Relief and Unemployment Extension Over Keystone XL, Forcing a Quick Decision that Likely Dooms Pipeline — as GOP Intends!

JR:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said today he will not support a payroll tax cut extension if he is not allowed to shoot this dog (or at least the climate the dog lives in) TPM reported today.  Apologies to “National Lampoon” and canine aficionados.

UPDATE:  Obama and the Dems caved to the GOP, agreeing to a decision in 60 days on Keystone in return for a 2-month (!) extension of tax relief and unemployment.  Reuters reports:

An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration hadn’t changed its earlier stance that it would reject the application for Keystone if forced to act within a 60-day window.

That, I believe, is what the GOP wants.  I was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and explained why:

By Kate Gordon and Daniel J. Weiss in a CAP repost

As Congress attempts to finish its 2011 work, the House leadership continues to push hard to speed up the permitting process for the Keystone XL pipeline. Today Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) threatened to add a Keystone provision to a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, scheduled to expire on December 31. Boehner told reporters:

These rumors that are floating around here about a two-month extension, I’ll just say this: If that bill comes over to us, we will make changes to it, and I will guarantee you that the Keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the United States Senate.

Ironically the State Department said Monday that such legislation would prevent it from approving the Keystone permit:

Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project.

Nonetheless, on Wednesday House leadership—and some Democrats—passed a tax extender package that included a sped-up permitting process for the Keystone XL pipeline. In explaining why on earth this controversial 1,700-mile oil pipeline should be appended to a tax package focused on unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, Rep. Boehner argued that the pipeline private-sector infrastructure project “would create tens of thousands of American jobs.”

But as The Washington Post pointed out Wednesday, the Keystone project would do no such thing.

Yes, the TransCanada Corporation initially said the pipeline might create as many as 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. But the company soon walked that figure back, explaining that its calculation was based on a “one job-one year” measure, meaning that one person working for two consecutive years would be counted twice. Using a more accurate calculation, TransCanada estimated the project would employ about 6,500 jobs. And an independent study by the Cornell Labor Institute found an even smaller number, noting that the pipeline will actually create “no more than 2,500-4,650 temporary direct construction jobs for two years.”

So Keystone is not, in fact, the key to getting tens of thousands of Americans back to work and off of unemployment insurance. But Keystone is much more insidious than that. Committing to this project would put the United States on the path toward an energy future characterized by extraction and export of dirty fossil fuels, where the vast majority of the benefits go straight to Big Oil companies.

The five largest oil companies have made $100 billion in profits so far in 2011 and are on track to make $130 billion. Rather than investing in clean alternative fuels, these companies are using their profits to buy back their own stock. And the five largest companies have nearly $60 billion in cash reserves. Meanwhile, four of the largest companies shed a total of 11,000 U.S. employees over the past five years.

But here’s what’s really at stake. This is a 1,700-mile pipeline, which would run all the way from upper Alberta, Canada, down to Houston, Texas. On the way it would pass through one province and six states. As originally routed, the pipeline would move 435,000 barrels per day of heavy crude oil through miles and miles of pipe that some fear is being manufactured under less-than-stringent controls in China and India. The line will run through critical areas such as Nebraska’s Ogallala Aquifer, where a leak or an oil spill could easily contaminate the water source for nearly 20 percent of the country’s agriculture.

All that oil—which, not incidentally, is extracted in the dirtiest way possible from the tar sands in Alberta—would then run down to Houston, where it would be refined and made, in large part, into petroleum products for export to foreign markets.

So far this story isn’t that great: not too many jobs, lots of environmental concerns, and not exactly promoting energy independence.

But it’s even bigger than that. If we build this 1,700-mile pipeline, we are making a decision about what kind of America we want to live in. We are choosing to allow Big Oil to tell us what kind of energy and fuel we should use, rather than choosing energy alternatives that work for each region of the country and build off our natural advantages of sun, wind, geothermal, and biomass.

We are also choosing to put our land, dollars, and hard work into the service of an industry that, in the long run, won’t really create all that much economic wealth for ordinary Americans.

Over the long term, most jobs in the oil sector aren’t good middle-class construction and manufacturing jobs; they’re minimum-wage jobs behind gas station counters. Contrast this with initiatives aimed at growing the clean energy economy, where there are job opportunities across a huge variety of industries and occupations, including a significant chunk in the manufacturing sector—long the anchor for America’s middle class.

In short, by choosing the pipeline, the House leadership is forcing America onto an economic path based on extraction and export, not one based on innovation and choice.

When the alternative looks like it can create jobs today, making a choice that’s in our long-term economic and environmental interest can be hard. It is especially hard for those workers (and the unions who represent them) who are most likely to get the 6,500 temporary construction jobs promised by pipeline developer TransCanada. But that’s why we have a national government—to take the long view and make the decisions that are truly best for the country, not for any particular state, region, industry, or interest group.

It is Congress’s job to get this country onto the path toward sustainable and strong economic growth, not to sell our country to the oil-and-gas industry. Clearly the House did not get that message. But that doesn’t mean the American people need to agree.

– Kate Gordon is Vice President for Energy Policy and Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress.

Related Post:

• James Hansen slams Keystone XL Canada-U.S. Pipeline: “Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts”

So does that mean Republicans have dropped their demand that an extension be tied to the approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline? Of course not:

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that his chamber will not sign off on an extension of the payroll tax cut sought by President Obama without including a provision to speed construction of an oil pipeline, which Obama has opposed…“If that bill comes over to us, we will make changes to it, and I will guarantee you that the Keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the United States Senate,” Boehner said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined in, saying, “Frankly, I will not be able to support a package that doesn’t include the pipeline.” Republicans claim that the oil pipeline will be a job creator, but the only independent analysis into the pipeline found that just 500 to 1400 temporary construction jobs will be created, “with a negative long-term economic impact.”

In order to attain its beloved pipeline, the GOP is willing to raise taxes on 113 million households next year, costing the average family $1000. At the same time, the GOP adamantly refused to consider a surtax on the very wealthiest Americans. This has become the standard operating procedure for the GOP this year: exploit expiring provisions (or the imminent expiration of U.S. credit) to force through a conservative agenda. In this instance, it’s middle-class taxpayers or the environment that suffers if Republicans get their way.

At the State Department’s daily briefing, a reporter asked about this and the answer was a firm, “go ahead, make my day”:

QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the proposed Congressional action requiring the State Department to make a determination on the Keystone pipeline within 60 days of enactment of the House version of the payroll tax cut bill?

ANSWER: It is the President’s prerogative to lead and manage the foreign policy of the United States, and in the case of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project, our relations with Canada. This historical prerogative encompasses the President’s long-established authority to supervise the permitting process for transboundary pipelines.

The President has delegated his authority to supervise this permitting process, by executive order, to the Department of the State. This process for determining whether to issue permits for transborder pipelines has been in place for more than 40 years.

In determining whether a permit is in the national interest, this process requires consideration of a myriad of factors, including environmental and safety issues, energy security, economic impact, and foreign policy, as well as consultation with at least 8 federal agencies and inputs from the public and stakeholders – including Congress.

The State Department has led a rigorous, thorough, and transparent process that must run its course to obtain the necessary information to make an informed decision on behalf of the national interest. Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project.

The State Department is currently in the process of obtaining additional information regarding alternate routes that avoid the Sand Hills in Nebraska. Based on preliminary consultations with the State of Nebraska and the permit applicant, the Department believes the review process could be completed in time for a decision to be made in first quarter 2013.

Bang. Bang.

It’s worth noting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last week: “If the House sends us their bill with Keystone in it, they are just wasting valuable time because it will not pass the Senate.” And President Obama said: “Any Effort to Tie Keystone to the Payroll Tax Cut, I Will Reject.”

Good to see the State Department switch from Kops to Cops.

But in private, Boehner seems to hold a different view. Politico reports that in a closed-door GOP meeting this morning, Boehner referred to an extension of the payroll tax holiday as “chicken-shit,” saying he wanted to tack on unrelated legislation favored by Republicans to make it palatable:

GOP leadership told its membership at a closed-door meeting Friday morning it would couple with the expiring tax provisions an easing of environmental regulations on boilers, selling broadband spectrum and paving the way for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. [...]

Speaker John Boehner referred to the package he’s putting forward as turning “chicken-sh — into chicken salad,” according to people attending the meeting in the Capitol basement Friday morning.

Translated, he’s going to pass President Barack Obama’s preferred tax cut, but he wants some skin from Democrats for it.

So which is it? Does Boehner actually believe in extending the payroll tax holiday for the middle class, or is that “chicken-shit”? An extension of the payroll tax holiday would help 95 percent of working families, but would disproportionately benefit working and middle-class people, as there’s a cap that prevents wealthy people from being taxed on anything they make over about $100,000.

Last night, Republicans in the Senate killed a Democratic bill that would have extended the middle-class tax holiday while raising taxes slightly on just the wealthiest 0.4 percent of Americans.