The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has reportedly rejected a proposed compromise with the Obama Administration on birth control access rules for religiously affiliated institutions. Under the “Hawaii compromise” any exempt religious organization would have to tell enrollees how they could directly access contraceptive services from their insurance company. But advocates of ensured access don’t want to force employees to beg their employers for a right they should have.

Today was supposed to be the final day of the Congressional session, as the House would return to finish off the payroll tax deal negotiated and passed through the Senate. But that blew up over the weekend. We now have a regular business day in the House, with votes in the afternoon. But it’s not clear exactly what they’ll do with the Senate’s payroll tax deal.

The main way that the US can insulate itself from the crisis in Europe is through continuing the fiscal state of emergency in the country, as the only ballast for growth. Unfortunately, we have a dysfunctional Congress, so the only way to realistically do this is to not slip backwards and turn fiscal policy negative by allowing several measures to expire at the end of 2012.

Later today, Senate Republicans will filibuster the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to add demand into the economy through infrastructure spending, payroll tax cuts, extended unemployment insurance and a variety of other programs, paid for by a 5.6% surtax on millionaires. That would stop the bill in its current form.

Taxes need to be completely re-thought through the lens of what it takes to pay for the things society demands. What’s a priority (the social safety net) and what isn’t (imperial adventures). Who can pay and who can’t. If Democrats guard the rich, or near-rich if your prefer, because $250,000 a year “does not get you a big home or lots of vacations or anything else that is associated with wealth,” you’re just not going to close to a level of revenue that allows for the national priorities.

Let’s review the bill together! The legislation is an amalgam of two different efforts. A bill co-sponsored by Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would give unions and industries greater ability to file claims against illegal Chinese trade practices on a case-by-case basis, and would allow the Commerce Department to factor in currency manipulation into any tariffs the US puts up as a result. This would increase duties against Chinese products, which are being effectively subsidized by currency manipulation. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that such a measure would collect $125 million in new tariff revenues, but the main impact would be to put political pressure on China to revalue its currency.

The House failed to pass a stopgap continuing resolution to fund the government today, as Democrats mostly held together to reject the bill, which included a cut to a clean vehicles loan guarantee program to offset disaster relief funding.

The reason that the minority Democrats had leverage at all was because House conservatives refused to vote for the stopgap bill, which funds the government for two months in Fiscal Year 2012 at the level of spending agreed to in the debt limit deal. Those 48 conservatives wanted to break the deal and cut spending to a lower level than the agreed-upon amount. And John Boehner couldn’t whip them to his side.

The biggest problem with the White House’s definitional strategy on the American Jobs Act was that Democrats didn’t really give it the full-throated support it needed to draw that contrast. By the end of last week, the White House was circling the wagons on that, and Democratic leaders stepped out to say that the jobs plan would have the support of the caucus. But those initial grumblings really hurt the unified message.

Are we on the way toward the same problem with the deficit reduction plan delivered today, similarly designed to draw contrast between taxes on millionaires or cuts to vital programs? So far, this looks a bit better.

The fact that Schumer took this to the floor means that he obviously sees political opportunity here, but also that this is not a fanciful notion. We really could have another government shutdown threat on our hands.

The infrastructure bank will be just another tax haven for the rich. They don’t pay taxes, and you pay them interest on the money they should be paying in taxes. Win-Win, except for you.