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The No. 1 issue next year will be that President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Democrats will be fighting for working people while Republicans will be fighting for millionaires who they believe should make no sacrifice for America.

Immediately after Congress passed the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits extension, Harry Reid renewed the battle for a surtax for those making a million bucks a year to join the rest of America in being part of the solution.

Ouch. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has a hideous job on any day, trying to keep his fractured conference together, but yesterday was one for the history books. In conceding on the payroll tax extension package the Senate had passed and his conference had opposed all week, Boehner made clear he had fought for fighting's sake, and that doing the right thing isn't always easy — which he reiterated several times. But it was clear he knew his conference has reached the point of diminishing returns with their lonely, losing payroll tax cut battle.

There are indications that tensions arose between House GOP leaders over this fight, and that Boehner should have known last Friday, when the two-month payroll tax cut extension was first introduced behind closed doors, that it would present problems for his conservative members. Yet Boehner allowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), with whom he works quite closely and has known for many years, to believe that passing a bipartisan bill and leaving town was fine. He was bucked by his members on Saturday, then chose to stick by them as they walked off a political cliff.

When House Republicans turned off C-SPAN cameras to prevent Democrats being seen championing the payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans, it was a pathetic GOP confession of humiliation and defeat. This is how Vladimir Putins runs Russia. This is not the way we do business in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I have worked for House Democratic leaders and senior Democratic senators and cannot remember any time when there has been a breakdown of trust the way there is today.

Harry Reid is a legislator of the first order, a dealmaker and a man of his word. There is now a very clear and recurring pattern of the White House and Senate Democrats reaching agreements with Republicans, and coming to believe, with reason, that Speaker Boehner reneged on those agreements.

This has happened a number of times. It is very troubling to those of us who believe that integrity and trust are the coin of the realm in this town.

Regarding the latest pre-recess fiasco surrounding the payroll tax cut: In my view, which I have conveyed at very high levels, they are all wrong. Americans look at these regular Kabuki humiliations and conclude that the president, Congress, Democrats and Republicans are all incompetent and weak.

There are no winners from either party except the highly paid political consultants, from both parties, who convince elected politicians that voters are stupid and can be fooled.

This is a very bad week for Congress. Paralysis reigns. Gridlock prevails. Accomplishments are nonexistent.

And the public gets it.

Let’s review where we are:  

1) Two hundred and eighteen members of the House of Representatives have co-sponsored legislation to prevent insider stock trades by Congress. That, folks, is a majority. But Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) forces Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) to pull the bill from getting marked up and passed. What?

I have known Barney Frank for nearly 30 years, but I have not known him as well or as long as my good friend Bill Black. Bill has written an extraordinary personal piece I want to share — Bill is a senior executive at Fleishman Hillard, a former chief of staff to several members of Congress. But, as you will see, it was not always thus.

Thank You, Barney Frank 


Barney Frank had more impact on my life than any human being outside my immediate family. I was 27 years old and adrift. I was in the final semester of UMass/Boston after a bumpy eight-year odyssey toward an undergraduate degree in political science. I had been working as a stock boy at the Stop & Shop for 11 years and was contemplating the exciting prospect of being promoted to frozen food manager at Store 431 in Roslindale, a blue-collar neighborhood of Boston. Then everything changed. 
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Don't miss the excellent wrap-up piece by Bob Cusack in The Hill about who won and who lost in the supercommittee superfiasco. Today I focus on the mother of all winners, the person the sexist Herman Cain called "princess," who struck the mother lode of being a huge winner in this deal: Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats. House Democrats were given another great gift this week when Newt Gingrich launched another attack on Social Security by reviving that tired GOP dog of private accounts.

Remember, Democrats won a major midterm election in a historically Republican district over the issue of Medicare. Since then, the Republicans have proposed even greater attacks on Medicare, in effect suggesting Medicare be turned into a subsidy for insurance companies. Of course, the collapsed Rick Perry once called Social Security a Ponzi scheme.

I have great respect for former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), but he neglects many critical points. Conservative governments in Europe (Germany, Britain, France) pursue a new $1.5 trillion bailout for big banks, but where is their $1.5 trillion proposal for more jobs, and why do Republicans oppose and obstruct every major new jobs program? Why do they oppose healthcare reform that would lower the deficit, such as the public option, and campaign-finance reform that would limit the ability of special interests to buy the tax loopholes and spending that raise the deficit?

If you are an American unhappy with big bailouts, huge Wall Street bonuses, mortgage scandals and skyrocketing bank fees by bailed-out banks, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is attacking you for being part of a mob! He even offers this attack at a Faith and Values conference, though I do not remember Jesus preaching in favor of big bank fees against jobless workers, small businesses, hurting consumers or poor Americans.

I guess Cantor didn't like my recent column, "Occupying Wall Street." I guess he is really upset that Americans are rallying in force to end the ripoffs that Americans are demanding should end.