Progress for the American People

The 111th Congress is off to a strong start, working with President Obama to take America in a New Direction, to turn our economy around and create good jobs, with common sense reforms and targeted investments in: affordable health care, clean energy jobs, educational excellence, fiscal responsibility, and tax fairness.

RECENTLY SIGNED INTO LAW

CREDIT CARDHOLDERS’ BILL OF RIGHTS, to provide tough new protections for consumers by banning unfair rate increases, abusive fees, and penalties—such as retroactive rate hikes on existing balances and double-cycle billing -- giving consumers clear information, and strengthening enforcement.

MILITARY PROCUREMENT REFORM, to crack down on Pentagon waste and cost overruns, which GAO says amount to $296 billion just for the 96 largest weapons systems, by dramatically beefing up oversight of weapons acquisition, promoting greater use of competition, and curbing conflicts of interest.

HELPING FAMILIES SAVE THEIR HOMES ACT, building on the President’s housing initiative, to provide significant incentives to lenders, servicers, and homeowners to work together to modify loans and to avoid foreclosures, which cost families their homes every 13 seconds in America.

FIGHTING MORTGAGE AND CORPORATE FRAUD & CREATING COMMISSION ON CAUSES OF CRISIS, to provide tools for prosecuting the mortgage scams and corporate frauds that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; and to create an outside commission to examine its causes.

SIGNED INTO LAW EARLIER THIS YEAR

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT, enacted in the first month of President Obama’s term, to jumpstart our economy, create and save 3.5 million jobs, give 95% of American workers a tax cut, and begin to rebuild America’s road, rail, and water infrastructure, with unprecedented accountability measures -- no earmarks, new state whistleblower protections, and an historic degree of transparency at www.recovery.gov.

HEALTH CARE FOR 11 MILLION CHILDREN, to finally provide cost-effective health coverage for 4 million more children whose parents earn too little to provide their own insurance, but too much to qualify for Medicaid, and preserve coverage for 7 million children already enrolled.

LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT, to restore the rights of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay—to help close the wage gap where women earn 78 cents for every $1 a man earns in America.

OMNIBUS PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT ACT 0F 2009, the most significant conservation bill in 15 years, to boost economic development and tourism at 160 mostly rural American sites; creating 2 million new acres of wilderness across 9 states; establishing 3 new national park units; designating 1,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers; and designating a National Monument and 3 National Conservation Areas.

EDWARD M. KENNEDY SERVE AMERICA ACT, tripling volunteerism opportunities for national service to enroll 250,000 students to retirees; creating new service corps for education, health care, energy and veterans; establishing a Summer of Service for middle and high school students; and increasing college financial awards.

STRENGTHENING OVERSIGHT OF TARP, to expand the authority of the TARP Special Inspector General, to help ensure that taxpayers’ funds are effectively used to get credit flowing to businesses and families.

PASSED BY HOUSE AND SENATE

BUDGET RESOLUTION, reflecting the President’s plan to get the economy moving again, by cutting taxes for middle-income families by $1.5 trillion and creating jobs with targeted investments in health care, clean energy and education – while cutting the deficit by nearly two-thirds by 2013.

PASSED BY HOUSE

WAR SUPPLEMENTAL BILL, to provide funds for the remainder of FY 2009 to provide our troops in harm’s way with what they need, implement the President’s plans for winding down the war in Iraq and changing strategy in Afghanistan, require a report on progress, and fund pandemic flu response.

MORTGAGE REFORM AND ANTI-PREDATORY LENDING ACT, to stop the predatory and irresponsible mortgage loan practices that played a major role in the current financial meltdown and to help ensure that the mortgage industry follows basic principles of sound lending and consumer protection.

PUTTING 50,000 COPS ON THE BEAT, to authorize $1.8 billion a year for COPS grants over the next five years, which will fund putting an additional 50,000 police officers on the street across the country.

GREEN SCHOOL MODERNIZATION, to provide critical investments to modernize, renovate, and repair school facilities across the country, while encouraging energy efficiency and creating nearly 140,000 new jobs.

WATER QUALITY INVESTMENT ACT, to launch clean water projects for families and communities across America, creating an estimated 680,000 jobs over the next five years.

REDUCING MILITARY FAMILIES TAX, which currently unfairly penalizes the 55,000 surviving spouses of military personnel who died as a result of their service-connected injuries.

PAY FOR PERFORMANCE ACT, to prohibit unreasonable or excessive compensation and non-performance-based bonuses for executives at companies receiving TARP funds, to stabilize our financial system.

This Week in Congress

What U.S. Congress is expected to cover this week. More links and ifo here.

Economic Recovery The House of Representatives this week will debate a measure that sets parameters for distributing of the remaining $350 billion in funding from October’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

Health Care The House will consider a bill reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The reauthorization will expand the program to cover an additional 4 million eligible children; the cost will likely be fully offset primarily by raising the federal tobacco tax.

Equal Pay The Senate will consider the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and possibly the Paycheck Fairness Act at the end of this week after both bills passed through the House last week. The Ledbetter bill corrects a 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that made it harder for victims of pay discrimination to bring a suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act builds on this act by prohibiting employers from limiting workers’ ability to share salary information or retaliating against them for seeking that information.

Energy and Environment The Senate will continue debate on S. 22 this week after a successful cloture vote on Sunday; the package contains over 150 individual bills designating public lands and wilderness areas. A vote on final passage of the bill is expected on Thursday or Friday.

Richest Members of Congress

# 36. Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) $7.50 million

Spratt’s minimum net worth soared in 2007 as the value of an 800-acre swath of pasture land in Fort Mill, S.C., moved into the $5 million to $25 million range.

The increase over its previous minimum $1 million listing swells the Democrat’s fortunes by $4 million, the largest factor in his 141 percent increase.

Spratt’s other assets include investments in Bank of America Corp. valued at $500,000 to $1 million and York Bancshares at $1 million to $5 million.

His real estate holdings include a D.C. rental unit and properties in South Carolina, with a combined value of at least $850,000.

Spratt carries $480,000 in debt, a combination of mortgage debt, credit cards and promissory notes.

#13. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) $19.64 million

McCain’s true value is impossible to estimate because most of the major assets are listed in the name of his wife or children, thereby requiring far less detailed disclosure. Other news outlets have suggested that Cindy McCain’s net worth may exceed $100 million, but there is no documentation to prove that figure.

McCain’s disclosure form lists 12 items with values of “over $1 million” that are owned by his wife and children. In 2007, the family liquidated a trust set up by Cindy McCain’s late mother that had a reported value in 2006 of more than $2.5 million. The proceeds were then distributed to three other trusts, which show a minimum value of $1.4 million. Cindy McCain also liquidated a blind trust in 2007, selling millions of dollars worth of stock, and the reported value of the stock she owns through Hensley & Co. — her family’s beer distributorship — dropped more than $4 million in value last year.

The only assets McCain claims as his own are a checking account with a balance of $15,000 to $50,000, a money market fund worth less than $15,000 and several book deals.

SOURCE: See the top 50 richest members of Congress at Roll Call

Bailout talk from 2 candidates

From the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign: Haste Makes Waste.

Independent presidential candidate and longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader said today that he opposes giving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- heralded as King Henry on the cover of Newsweek -- what amounts to a blank check for $700 billion with nothing more than a promise to keep the U.S. financial system from imploding. Nader said that any bailout should have strict accountability, conflict-of-interest, regulatory, and oversight rules attached, including a cap on executive compensation and stock warrants for the rescuing taxpayers.

"Of all the insults Bush's monarchy has ever hurled at Congress, a supposedly co-equal branch of government, this one breaks new ground in shattering the bedrock principle of separation of powers and checks and balances under our Constitution and replacing it with blanket Congressional surrender of its authority to Bush's White House.

"Rather than race home to run for re-election, members of Congress should do what they were sent to Washington to do: carefully draft the legislation that will serve the needs of Main Street and Elm Street, not the greed, fraud and recklessness of Wall Street.

"Why should the American taxpayers bail-out fraud, recklessness and criminal irresponsibility?" asks Nader. "Why should the American people trust the judgment of the very administration that has gotten us into this mess?"

Nader expressed strong agreement with William Greider of The Nation who recently wrote that "If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public -- all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims."Nader also calls for changes to the bill that would include:
• Provisions for homeowners to stay in their homes in default, or rent them at market value.
• A cap on executive compensation and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.
• A stimulus package for infrastructure repair and upgrade to generate new community jobs.
• Comprehensive regulation of and disclosures by the financial industry and Wall Street to prevent this from occurring again.
• Prudent margin requirements on derivatives trading and a tax on securities derivatives transactions.
• Shareholders control over the corporations they own.
• Tougher criminal enforcement against culpable firms and executives.

From the Green Party (not on the SC ballot):

Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente Campaign Update.

Last week's statement, issued in the wake of the $81 billion give-away to AIG is now seeming more prescient every day, with another $700 billion give-away proposed for the very bankers who's gambling in the derivatives market created the crisis. Meanwhile we watch as both parties in Congress continue to ignore a related foreclosure crisis that is putting more and more people on the streets every day.

We hope you will use this week to empower people in your community, to share the questions Cynthia raises and the proposals for 'fundamental change' she identifies and use the following piece to let folks know that we do have a choice in 2008. Ours is a real choice, not one between banker-financed candidates parroting policies already set in motion to destroy this planet and its peoples. We get to choose between peace and war, between justice and avarice, between voting for our highest hopes and aspirations, rather than merely against our worst fears.