Urgent: Keep Keystone XL and polluter perks out of payroll tax cut bill

[BettorsChat]

After Congress agreed last night on a spending bill, negotiations over a payroll tax cut extension are now down to the wire -- but the sticking points have nothing to do with the payroll tax.

Instead, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Republican leadership in Congress are insisting that they will not allow this middle class tax cut extension to move forward unless Democrats in the Senate agree to rush a decision on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

Call your senators and demand that they keep the Keystone XL and other polluter perks out of the payroll tax cut debate.

That’s not all. Speaker Boehner is doing his polluter lobbyist friends another favor by insisting that the payroll tax extension bill also include a provision that would preserve a loophole allowing coal-fired power stations and other industrial plants to endanger the public with emissions of pollutants including mercury, which causes brain damage in infants.1

Encouragingly, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-N.V.) are fighting these polluter perks. Will you help us to strengthen their negotiating hand by phoning your representatives today?

The larger the outcry, the better chance we have of defeating this outrageous Republican attempt to kowtow to polluters.

Please call your senators today -- click here for the phone number and call script.

Thanks,

Nick Berning
Friends of the Earth

1. To learn more, check out ThinkProgress’ coverage of the attempt to insert polluter-friendly provisions into the tax cut bill: GOP's Coal Poison Pill Risks White House Veto Of Payroll Tax Cut Bill | ThinkProgress

[vols fan]

"Friends of earth"
In other words tree huggers and cock suckers. Keep sticking with your people Monte

[10DimeBry]

all the libtards want to do is tax more and regulate everything!!!!

[umreb78]

We MUST keep those 20,000 jobs from being created!!! When people go to work they get off the govt tit...and might even vote Republican!!!!!

[umreb78]

While we're debating this, someone please refute the logic I put forth in this repost:

To All Democrat Members of the House of Representatives:

After watching the December 13 vote on the extension of the payroll tax holiday, the extension (yet again) of the unemployment benefit payments, and the approval of the Keystone Pipeline, it is painfully obvious to “Main Street America” that the Democrats who voted against passage have sunk to all new low in moral depravity.

Forget for a moment the fact that a very large percentage of citizens oppose the tax holiday on its face because of the huge hole it will continue to blow into the Social Security Trust Fund; the same SSTF that is already bankrupt despite the contrary pronouncements repeatedly droned on by the Administration and the Democrats in both chambers. Most moderate and conservative Americans have reluctantly already accepted the fact that the payroll tax and unemployment extensions will be passed. Just as the Administration promised, in fact threatened, that they would.

Why then did 187 House Dems vote “NO” on the bill, and why will Harry Reid ensure that the House Bill will die in the Senate? While politically incorrect, the answer to that question is that they are traitors to the American People. Painfully obvious now, as if their prior actions didn’t confirm it, is that fact that these representatives do NOT represent their constituents. No sir, their role in a practical sense is to do whatever is necessary to ensure the re-election of Barack Obama, themselves, and the other left leaning members of the Congress.

The substantive reason for their opposition to the bill is now being touted as, “the Republicans are trying to tie the President’s hands concerning the pipeline project. They are holding American workers tax cut hostage in respect to an “extraneous” matter”. No, the Republicans are “giving” on the payroll and unemployment issues each of which is opposed by millions of Americans, and in exchange, they want the pipeline project approved. That is called negotiation and is a two way street. The Dems in Congress and in the White House will undoubtedly take the message to the press that the Republicans are impeding “the help that American workers need” for political reasons.

There are political reasons affecting this debate, but anyone with a modicum of intelligence and armed with the facts (not the Obama, Pelosi, and Reid misrepresentations) understands that the political motivation is coming from the Democrats, not from the Republicans. This is clearly borne out by the facts surrounding the Keystone Pipeline:
• The pipeline, when approved will create new construction jobs immediately in America. The numbers of new jobs are estimated to be between 20,000 (the lowest published total) and 40,000 (the highest published total) immediately. This would seem to be a boon for a President who “is focused like a laser on job creation”.
• The volume of Canadian sands oil that would be transported by the pipeline would be enough to eliminate the U.S. need for imported Middle Eastern oil within five years. Could there be a link between U.S. energy self-sufficiency and the failed vision of the Obama Administration that “alternative energy sources” could, at some future date, be produced in an economically, commercially viable way? Perhaps such a self-sufficient condition would make it much more difficult for the Obama Administration to siphon off trillions of taxpayer dollars of taxpayer monies to alternative energy investors who, coincidentally, I’m sure, are also huge Obama and Democratic campaign donors.
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has publicly stated that if the Keystone Pipeline Project is not completed, the oil producers in Western Canada plan to export their more than 500,000 barrels per day to China via a second pipeline alternative that is being considered by the Canadian government. It is impossible to conclude that such a result could possibly be in America’s interest.

Despite the significant benefits the pipeline would bring to America, its workers and its citizens, the Administration has decided to delay a decision on the pipeline’s approval…until after the 2012 elections. Make no mistake, such a decision is as politically motivated and patently cynical as any ever made. Obama doesn’t want to “lose” the support of the environmental left who oppose the pipeline; nor does he want to “lose” the support of union labor who favors the pipeline. Gone, seemingly, is the era of a president doing what is in the best interest of THE NATION.

To millions of Americans, the Administration repeatedly taking positions and making decisions NOT in the best interest of the Country is nothing new. They understand that this has been occurring for almost three years. But as for the Congress, this week’s vote made clear that the liberals in Congress are in total lockstep with the Obama White House. Many suspected that circumstance, and all the subject vote did was to confirm it unequivocally.

So to the Democrats in the House who voted against this bill, the same Democrats who are so addicted to standing in front of any TV camera they can find and parroting the Administration line that the “Republicans continue to put party and politics ahead of the Country”, perhaps they should perform a bit of introspection. There was no honorable justification in the eyes of the American People for voting against this measure. Clearly, though, there was a reason for opposing the bill, but it is light years removed from any aspect of honor. The Administration, for clearly political reasons, did not want the pipeline issue brought to light since it could hinder his re-election campaign; the mind-numbed robots in the Democratic caucus, upon receiving instruction from on high (much as Moses received the Ten Commandments) to defeat this bill with the pipeline provisions addressed, happily marched like good soldiers into the House chamber to register their NO votes.

In the military there is a chain of command and personnel are expected to, and do, obey orders from superiors without question. The Democrats on the Hill need to understand that they are NOT in the military and that the White House, the DNC, nor the left wing think tanks are their superior officers. They work for the American People! To cast a No vote for such repugnantly political reasons makes Americans wonder how these ideologues can even look at themselves in a mirror. Apparently that is quite possible if the image in the mirror is one of a person bereft of personal values, personal responsibility, moral principles, ethics, self- esteem, or dignity. The People pay their salary, and with more voter education, maybe the People will sign their pink slips.

Tim M (CPA, ret)
Independent Voter / Independent Thinker
Biloxi, MS

[BettorsChat]

all the libtards want to do is tax more and regulate everything!!!!

I would suggest you don't even try to argue politics because what you say is completely backwards.

The Democrats want to raise taxes on the 10% richest people in the USA. This bill with the keystone is being attached to get it through and the other bill is to not raise taxes on the middle class. Maybe you should try reading it again.

[BettorsChat]

We MUST keep those 20,000 jobs from being created!!! When people go to work they get off the govt tit...and might even vote Republican!!!!!

20,000 jobs wow. What impact is the pipeline going to have on the environment? I guess that doesn't matter. You were probably standing behind BP when their oil spill happened. And you don't realize how much damage that has caused for this Country.

[kbsooner21]

20,000 jobs wow. What impact is the pipeline going to have on the environment? I guess that doesn't matter. You were probably standing behind BP when their oil spill happened. And you don't realize how much damage that has caused for this Country.

Not much. What damage has it exactly caused?

[umreb78]

20,000 jobs wow. What impact is the pipeline going to have on the environment? I guess that doesn't matter. You were probably standing behind BP when their oil spill happened. And you don't realize how much damage that has caused for this Country.

You're comment above is so fucking ridiculous it's hard to even respond. I fully expect that I will be banned for this since you are the site owner, but frankly I don't give a fuck! For your information you uninformed moron, I know more about the BP spill than you could learn in a lifetime. I live in Biloxi, MS you dipshit. The Deepwater Horizon incident ruined me financially. During 2010, the occupancy rate in two hotels I own was fucking 22% from May - Aug of 2010. Since 2005, the average for those months was 97.3% so don't presume to tell me a damned thing about the BP spill. I have any interest in three seafood restaurants and my 2010 total sales were $265,000...in 2009, the total was $1.1 million, so don't presume to tell me a damned thing about the BP spill.

In spite of all that, I still want this Nation to Drill Baby Drill. Since the WH Occupier place a moratorium on offshore drilling, 72,000 offshore jobs have been lost in the Gulf Coast. IN addition, there have been another 38,000 jobs lost onshore to service companies who serviced the rigs (now in Africa and South America). You environmental wackos actually consider "nature" to be an entity. It is not...There's a damn good reason we walk upright, have opposable thumbs, and can THINK (present company excepted). It is so we can use natural resources to improve the quality of life for mankind! Don't be calling me out and preaching to me about anything that you are fucking clueless about...especially when the "congregation" knows a helluva lot more about your sermon than you do....In closing, wishes for you to have a Merry Christmas.

Spark, Vol, and Watchtower....assuming I am banned, I want to let you know I appreciate your thoughts and that I very much enjoyed all your posts here.

[vols fan]

Spark, Vol, and Watchtower....assuming I am banned, I want to let you know I appreciate your thoughts and that I very much enjoyed all your posts here.

I don't think you will be banned. Monte knows the reaction he's going to get before he post all this propaganda shit so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. He's Dem to the core and that's just the way it is. It's his site and he's going to shove it down our throats and then he will disappear for a few months so don't get to worked up about it. Right now I'm so fed up that they can get rid of every politician in Washington right now cause there all fucking idiots. Dems,pubs every fucking one of them.

[umreb78]

I don't think you will be banned. Monte knows the reaction he's going to get before he post all this propaganda shit so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. He's Dem to the core and that's just the way it is. It's his site and he's going to shove it down our throats and then he will disappear for a few months so don't get to worked up about it. Right now I'm so fed up that they can get rid of every politician in Washington right now cause there all fucking idiots. Dems,pubs every fucking one of them.

Every damn one of 'em...That is the BEST solution I've seen...Merry Christmas, Vol

[vols fan]

Every damn one of 'em...That is the BEST solution I've seen...Merry Christmas, Vol

You too brother

[Watchtower76]

20,000 jobs wow. What impact is the pipeline going to have on the environment? I guess that doesn't matter. You were probably standing behind BP when their oil spill happened. And you don't realize how much damage that has caused for this Country.

Looks like umreb78 realizes the damages monte...Not a good question for a hotel owner in mississippi....

AND what kind of damage would the pipeline cause to the environment? plz explain, somehow you'll probably say it will cause more global warming cuz the exposed black pipes will radiate to much heat......

[Spark]

I don't think you will be banned. Monte knows the reaction he's going to get before he post all this propaganda shit so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. .

I certainly do not think anything will happen to 78. Sometimes when you sling mud it comes back and hits you in the face.