Politics

This March, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, we recognize all of the women who have come before us to make this world a better place. We take time to reflect on the movement toward equality and look forward with hope toward the progress still to come.

Some rights, like a woman’s right to vote, came through long, arduous, and at times, violent struggles. Others have come through quiet acts of courage, or from a few simple words sparking a revolution. We take time to remember the triumphs of those women who came before us, like Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, and Jeanette Rankin.

The first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Jeanette Rankin stood by her convictions and was the only Member of Congress to vote against sending the U.S. into World War I and World War II. It wasn’t the easy path, but it was what she felt to be right. She serves as a reminder to women in Congress today, still grappling with the angst of sending our American men and women, who are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, into battle to defend our freedom.

It’s been a week. As I read and reread the editorial about the culture of Goldman Sachs, I had one overwhelming and continuous conclusion: the picture painted of financial services was a million miles away from anything I have heard or experienced. 

I have been the head of The Financial Services Roundtable since 1999. During that time, I have not once heard a single employee of any one of our members speak unkindly or disparaging of a customer or client. Not once. I talk to everyone from my most senior executives to financial advisors to bank tellers, and I talk to them 365 days a year, sometimes including Christmas. 

Customers are always held in the highest regard. Always.

I didn’t keep count, but I estimate that’s over 30,000 conversations with associates of the 100 companies of The Financial Services Roundtable. One-on-one, small groups, and large groups. Official and informal.

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One of our most precious American freedoms is that of free speech. It is protected in our Constitution and it is practiced every day by citizens. But we do not have a constitutional right to an advertiser-sponsored megaphone for our views. Rush Limbaugh has spewed hateful speech over the airwaves for decades, with the assistance of advertisers who make his show profitable. But recently, he crossed a line – even for him – and launched a vicious attack on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke for supporting mandated insurance coverage of contraception.


Limbaugh called Ms. Fluke a “slut,” and “a prostitute,” and stated that “she wants to be paid to have sex.” Limbaugh even went so far as to state: So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.



Favorability ratings don’t lie. In politics, when your approval rating is below 50 percent, you’re on shaky ground. When you’re between 4 and 13 percent -- as this Congress consistently is -- you’re in revolution territory! Congress is officially broken due to extreme partisanship on both sides. The real question, however, is who is left to step up and fix it?
 
Over 40 percent of the voters in the nation identify themselves as “moderates.”  However, less than 10 percent of the current members of Congress would self-identify the same way. Congress was designed to represent a cross section of America. This is no longer the case. 
 
Lately, the media has made much of the fact that centrists are leaving the Senate in droves, with the departures of Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), and Jim Webb (D-Va.) at the end of this year.

In response to Michael Zuppone’s post, “Senate should stand firm on JOBS Act,” on the Congress Blog, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) request the opportunity to offer its perspective on the JOBS Act. 

Election-year politics have blinded Congress and the White House to the unintended consequences of the JOBS Act, which while well intentioned, could do little more than open the floodgates to investment fraud.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act (H.R. 3606), which passed the House last week and is heading to the Senate next week, is an example of good intentions gone bad.

The most jobs this cleverly named bill may create are jobs for fraudsters, like the Nigerian scammers, penny-stock pitchers and Ponzi schemers already lurking behind the Internet to cloak their schemes.

The following letter was sent to President Obama by Rep. Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and 26 other members of Congress.

Dear Mr. President,

When the member nations of the World Bank meet this spring to select the organization’s next president, we strongly encourage you to nominate Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as the United States’ candidate. We believe that Professor Sachs has the experience, expertise and bold vision for the future needed to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history.

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be the world’s leading expert on economic development and the fight against poverty. For over 25 years, he has advised dozens of governments throughout the developing world on economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation, and globalization. He has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was described by the New York Times as “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time Magazine as “the world’s best known economist.” A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade.

On April 21st, 2012, I will be honored to appear as a panelist in a discussion on immigration at The Awakening in Orlando, Florida. The event is sponsored by the Freedom Federation and by Liberty Counsel, and is advertised as, “Uniting Our Voices Around Shared Values.” The panel discussion in question is titled “Immigration: The Challenge to Get it Right.” The title is deceptive in its evident simplicity, as in reality, the challenge is a daunting one, and it has befuddled advocates and politicians alike for well over a decade. However, the challenge is a most timely and worthy one, as while the challenge of finding a workable, values-based solution for our immigration crisis has never been greater, the rewards for doing so would prove incredibly worthwhile for our nation.

As I see it, there are actually two interrelated challenges to this issue: the policy challenge of crafting workable legislative solutions, and the political challenge of identifying enough common ground between Republicans and Democrats on this issue to reach 60 votes in the Senate, as well as a majority of votes in the House. 

A palpable air of hypocrisy hangs over the Senate these days. Seeking to distract attention from President Obama’s unconstitutional “recess” appointments — not to mention the failure of his economic policies — Democrats disingenuously accuse Republicans of “obstructing” the president’s judicial nominees. 

In an attempt to create the perception of Republican resistance, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev), has taken the extraordinary step of scheduling contentious cloture votes for 17 nominees who were otherwise on the normal path to routine confirmation, claiming “delay for delay’s sake.” 

Of course, these desperate claims are entirely false: the Senate has already confirmed more of President Obama’s nominees (129) than it did during President George W. Bush’s entire second term (120), and has done so at an almost identical pace (average of 218 and 211 days, respectively, from nomination to confirmation). Indeed, not long ago Reid acknowledged that the Senate has “done a good job on nominations,” and a Judiciary Committee Democrat recently noted that we have been “speeding up the confirmation of judges.” 

Early Saturday morning, I made my way down to Henryville, Indiana. I wanted to get a formal briefing and a firsthand look at the aftermath of the tornado storm that claimed lives and laid waste to this community and to towns across a six-county area of Indiana.

Driving into Henryville in the squad car of a state police officer who experienced the storm was really something. The trooper told me of watching a police car literally blown off the highway in front of him as the storm approached and how he thought, "this was it."

As you exit the interstate and drive east, you see homes leveled, battered and broken next to schools and businesses shattered by the tornado. Even one week later, the power of this storm is evident everywhere you look.

We joined the fire chief as well as state and local emergency officials at the end of their morning briefing and were informed of the progress and challenges in the cleanup and the rebuilding effort. Many of these first responders have been here since hour one, but the commitment each of them reflected was inspiring.

Last week a new analysis of adult mortality rates in African countries was released. The study authors found that between 2004 and 2008, in those nations where the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was most active, the odds of death were about 20 percent lower than in other countries in the region. It was one more piece in the growing collection of evidence that PEPFAR has been a tremendously successful program, advancing U.S. humanitarian and diplomatic priorities and saving millions of lives. 

That is why the proposal in President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget to cut bi-lateral HIV programming through PEPFAR by nearly $550 million, or 11 percent, has stunned so many on Capitol Hill and in the global health community. Here are six reasons why this proposal should be rejected by Congress:

1. It undermines the goal of an “AIDS-free generation.” Last December, President Obama pledged that we can “end this pandemic,” echoing Secretary of State Clinton’s earlier statement that achieving an “AIDS-free generation” is a policy priority for the U.S. But the budget request isn’t consistent with this stated ambition. Though the White House insists the U.S. can still achieve the AIDS treatment and other targets set by the president last year, it is inevitable that PEPFAR program managers, faced with seriously diminished resources and ambitious targets in a few areas, will slash services for which there are no specific goals. That might include, for example, the PEPFAR program providing food and education to millions of children orphaned by AIDS.