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I don't expect we'll see any Republicans willing to support his legislation, but good for Sen. Sanders for doing this: Senator Introduces Bill To End Huge Corporate Tax Giveaway:

Corporations offshoring profits costs both the federal government and states billions of dollars per year. One of the more egregious giveaways is known as “deferral,” which allows U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes on overseas profits until they bring that money back to the U.S., giving them every incentive to leave it overseas permanently.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “The current tax system provides incentives for U.S. firms to locate their production facilities in countries with low taxes as a way to reduce their tax liability at home,” ultimately resulting in compensation for U.S. workers being lower. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is introducing a bill today that would end this practice and close several other corporate tax loopholes: [...]

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, “the provisions in this bill will raise more than $590 billion in revenue over the next decade.”

Due to the proliferation of loopholes, credits, and the use of tax havens, major corporations haven’t paid the full statutory tax rate in 45 years. In 2011, the 12.1 percent effective rate that corporations paid was the lowest in 40 years.

Here's more from Sen. Sanders' site: End Offshore Tax Havens:

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Ed Schultz spoke to Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Jonathan Alter about the tentative deal to extend the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance. When asked why it appears Republicans are finally giving in and willing to pass the measures without demanding offsets, both Schakowsky and Alter noted the obvious; they're looking at their poll numbers and hearing from their constituents and responding to the fact that the electorate is fed up with their obstruction.

Lawmakers reach tentative deal on payroll tax, jobless benefits:

House-Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut that delivers about $20 a week to the average worker yielded a tentative agreement Tuesday, with lawmakers hopeful of unveiling the pact Wednesday and sending the measure to President Barack Obama as early as this week.

Under the outlines of the emerging agreement, a 2 percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax would be extended through the end of the year, with the nearly $100 billion cost added to the deficit. Jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed would be renewed as well, with the $30 billion or so cost paid for in part through auctioning broadcast spectrum to wireless companies and requiring federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said it was described to lawmakers as a tentative agreement.

The payroll tax cut and renewing jobless benefits were key planks in Obama's jobs program, which was announced in September. The payroll tax cut benefits 160 million Americans and delivers a tax cut of about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year. People making a $100,000 salary would get a $2,000 tax cut.

The deal would not only be a win for Obama but would take the payroll tax fight — which put Republicans on the defensive — off the table for the fall election campaign. Read on...

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky takes GOP to task and slams them as the Grinches who stole your Christmas for their political games being played over the extension of the payroll tax holiday.

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On this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes, Eliot Spitzer found himself getting some push back (thankfully) from his fellow panelist, Demo's Heather McGhee and Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky when he suggested that Democrats should consider raising the retirement age gradually for Social Security beneficiaries because Americans are living longer.

MCGHEE: I wish this weren’t so dire, but for wealthier white men, absolute longevity and healthiness has increased.

SPITZER: Yes.

MCGHEE: For working class women, it has decreased.

SPITZER: Over time we can do it.

MCGHEE: So you have to look at the equity issues unfortunately. I wish that weren't the case. [...]

SCHAKOWSKY: The very idea that we would raise the retirement age as Heather said for poor woman... that longevity has actually gone down. Maybe at some point we can do this. The other question is, so then where are the jobs? Are you going to go out at age sixty five and go find yourself a job? Where are those jobs? How are you going to have income? Ten percent of people rely on Social Security for one hundred percent of their income.

And the average Social Security benefit is $12,000; $10,000 for women. This is such a modest benefit. I think the idea right now of raising the age, which is a benefit reduction, is just ridiculous. At some point maybe we can consider it, when there are jobs for older people and when people are actually all living longer, not just rich white men.

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MSNBC's Chris Matthews talked to Rep. Jan Schakowsky about whether Paul Ryan is going to receive any support from voters with his recently released plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system and to balance the budget off of the backs of the elderly, the working class and the poor. The short answer is no but the bigger question is why? I agree with Susie and Digby that this stinks of nothing but an attempt to make the now defunct mess of a deficit commission and their co-chairs recommendations look "reasonable."

MATTHEWS: I'm with you. I'm with you on the macroeconomics. Let's go back to the microeconomics, the realities of this. Congresswoman, older people get sick. I‘ve noticed the older I get, the more I need a doctor. It‘s a fact. It isn‘t a good bet to go into business, if you‘re an insurance company, and assume that people aren‘t going to have health needs as they go into their 70s, their 80s, if they‘re lucky enough to make their 90s. They‘re going to have health problems that are going to cost a lot of money, especially near the end.

That's why the government has Medicare because it‘s not a good bet for business to insure people in their 70s and 80s they‘re not going to get sick. I'm laughing at the absurdity of this!

Now, here along comes a Republican guy—

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: -- a young guy like Paul Ryan, who is healthy as hell, and he says, oh, great, we will give you a little voucher to help you buy medical insurance when you‘re 83 years old.

Give me a break. Who is going to sell you the policy? I'm sorry.

You‘re the expert.

SCHAKOWSKY: Give me—yes, give me a break is right.

And the median income for people over 65 years old in our country, you know what it is, Chris? It's $19,000 a year. That is with everything. Those are the people. And frail elderly, you're going to send out in the market to choose among all the health insurance companies, and then some measly amount of money is going to be sent to them, and if they don‘t have enough coverage, then too bad for them?

And the thing that really frosts me is that what Paul Ryan says is that this is a moral issue. I agree with him that it‘s a moral issue. Do nothing about the wealthiest, and take it out on the backs of people who make a median income of $19,000 a year? It's unconscionable. And it's silly. And I don‘t think it's going to have the political support that he wants.

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I'm glad we've had a few liberals to stand up for the working class on that deficit commission like Jan Schakowsky since it looks like their recommendations are going nowhere for now. During her interview on CNN's Parker/Spitzer, Schakowsky explains to Parker fill-in Will Cain that out in the real world, there is not this obsession with deficit reduction or entitlement cuts that we're seeing out of our beltway Villagers chattering class. She also does a good job of explaining that Social Security does not reduce the deficit, despite being called unserious by Cain.

The bad news is, this is just a preview of what's yet to come. Here's more on that from Chris Bowers -- What happens next on the Deficit Commission.

Full transcript via CNN.

SPITZER: Let me ask you very simply, is this commission becoming a train wreck? I mean, it just seems hard to imagine, there are going to be 14 votes for any plan or any even piece of this plan as it's been rolled out it's been met with derision and opposition. What do you think? Fourteen votes in the cards for this plan?

SCHAKOWSKY: I don't see 14 votes for this plan, but I do think that if we would trim back our ambitions and make more of a laundry list of things that we could all agree on, and I think there would be some that point us at least in the right direction, that we could make a powerful statement, nonetheless. It seems, however, that Bowles- Simpson have done sort of Bowles-Simpson 2.0 that they're going to introduce -- we may even get a copy of it tonight that will be discussed tomorrow and then voted on Friday. If it still has a lot of the things that hurt the middle class, I'm an old-fashion Democrat and think we ought to stand up for middle class people, that cut social security benefits, that add to the cost of Medicare for the elderly that put very tough caps on discretionary spending which is mostly programs that help ordinary people, then I don't see how I can vote for this plan. And also, it doesn't have any kind of investment in the economy, helping to create jobs, which really does promote deficit reduction through growth.

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of President Obama's deficit commission, talked to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell about her alternative to the proposal by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.

Schakowsky Offers Alternative to Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Plan:

Plan Would Close Deficit without Forcing the Middle Class to Pay the Bill

WASHINGTON, DC (November 16, 2010) – Today Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, offered a comprehensive proposal to reduce the federal deficit without making middle class Americans foot the bill. Schakowsky's plan is an alternative to the Bowles-Simpson plan and would reduce the deficit by $426.95 billion in 2015, surpassing President Obama’s $250 billion target. Critically, the Schakowsky plan accomplishes deficit reduction without making cuts to essential federal expenditures that benefit the middle class. In unveiling her proposal, Schakowsky made the following statement:

“The President’s Fiscal Commission has been given a concrete goal: to achieve primary budget balance in 2015, ensuring that all spending is paid for except for interest on the national debt. Last week, co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson laid out their plan, which they presented to the Commission and to the public. Their proposal would have serious consequences for lower and middle class Americans, and that is why I cannot support it.

“I am releasing my own plan today because I believe that there is a better way to achieve our goal – one that protects the poor and the middle-class.

“Lower and middle class Americans did not cause the deficit.

“Just ten years ago the federal budget was generating a surplus as far as the eye could see. That surplus was turned into a deficit due to massive tax cuts – mainly to wealthy Americans; two wars paid for by borrowed money; and a major recession caused by the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks.

“Over the last decade the incomes of middle class Americans have actually shrunk, while those of the wealthiest two percent of the population have exploded.

“The middle class did not benefit from the Republican economic policies that led to the current deficit – they were the victims – they should not be called upon to pick up the tab.

“Fixing the Federal deficit is not an end in itself. The goal of budget policy should be to assure long-term, widely shared economic growth. Economic growth is not just good for businesses and families – it will reduce the deficit. Sustained, long-term economic growth requires that we end the trend of concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the rich and less and less in the hands of a middle class that can then afford to buy the products and services that will sustain economic growth.

“The proposals included in this plan are aimed at bringing the federal deficit under control using policies that will put Americans back to work and strengthen middle class incomes: the foundation of long-term economic growth.

Go read the rest for more details. It's good to see some pushback against Simpson and Bowles. I'm sure we'll be hearing most of the Beltway Villagers (unlike Lawrence O'Donnell) dismissing it as not being "serious" since it doesn't inflict enough pain on the working class, which needs to be ready to take their medicine so the rich can keep their tax cuts. We'd hate to ever do anything to hurt those "job producers" now, would we?

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I missed this portion of CNN's The Situation Room during the week but caught the reair this weekend. I know our politicians have to be careful with their words because they don't want anything they say used in some political ad against them later, but I really wish Jan Schawoksky had felt she had the freedom to tell David Gergen to stick his “political cowardess” remark where the sun doesn't shine during this segment. I'd like for Gergen to explain how our budget being balanced off the backs of the poor and the middle class and elderly is somehow responsible instead of asking the rich to pay their share and balance the budget.

Nothing like seeing three on one from our supposed “liberal media” ganging up on someone who's trying to do the right thing as a member of President Obama's Catfood commission. David Gergen and the other "serious" Villagers in our sorry excuse for a mainstream media are never going to have to worry about whether the sacrifices they're asking other Americans to make are going to make any difference in their lives. Gergen and his ilk could care less if some coal miner, or janitor, or electrician, or carpenter or garbage collector has to work until they drop dead. Nor does he care that they drop dead because they don't have a job and no one will hire them because they're too old if they're unemployed and they're too young to collect Social Security if the age gets jacked up.

Raise the rates on the upper earners and your problem with Social Security is solved. I'd like to see the cap lifted completely and the rate reduced for everyone. We'll never see that happen as long as the wealthy are controlling our political class and our talking heads in the corporate media.

BLITZER: We're joined by Democratic congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, of Illinois, along with our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger and David Gergen. Congresswoman, let me start with you. You hate these proposals, and you're a member of this commission, why?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I'm a member of the commission. We were told from the beginning that nothing would be done to Social Security that would affect current beneficiaries. And, of course, the proposal does exactly that. It changes the cost of living adjustment, the way we calculate it. That would affect current beneficiaries. And of course, in addition, does raise the age of retirement that will effect future beneficiaries as well.

That's a non-starter. It's just not going to happen. And in terms of Medicare, which takes an increasing bite out of Social Security, we see that the proposal increased cost sharing for seniors who are already spending about 30 percent of their income on health care. So, you're going to see absolutely a firestorm of opposition from older and near-older Americans against this proposal.

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As Digby noted, Bart Stupak continuing to highjack the health care bill by insisting that it contains language allowing for the federal funding of abortions (which is an out right lie as Rachel and Jan Schakowsky discussed in the clip) is still a big problem and she thinks that the liberals are of course going to be forced to cave in to the likes of Stupak.

Rachel Maddow talked to Rep. Jan Schakowsky about this tonight and about how the Stupak language as Digby rightfully noted "changes the current law to the extent that it extends the tentacles of the egregious Hyde Amendment into the private sector". Right now, Schakowsky says there's no way she's voting for it if the language stays in there.

It's really disgusting that the Democrats have allowed these C-Street zealots to use the issue of health care to try to force their religious agenda onto women in the United States so that only wealthy women will have control over their own reproductive rights. I guess we'll find out how all of this plays out shortly. I wonder if Stupak is coming to the health care summit this week? If so, will the Democrats be brave enough to call out a member of their own party for lying about the abortion language in the bill? I'm not holding my breath.

Thom Hartmann talks to Rep. Jan Schakowsky about legislation being introduced by herself and Sen. Bernie Sanders to end the United States' reliance on private security contractors. Rep. Schakowsky has more at her site --Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act.