Reform & Fiscal Responsibility News

By the Numbers: 50 Percent

Posted by Megan Slack on December 6, 2011 at 4:36 PM EDT

In the run-up to the financial crisis, independent, unregulated mortgage lenders were among the largest originators of subprime mortgages. The default rate on subprime mortgages made in 2006, the height of the housing bubble, now exceeds 50 percent.

In part to prevent future homeowners from being saddled with mortgages they can't pay, as well as regulate practices that led to the housing market crash in the first place, President Obama created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

The Bureau consolidates consumer protection authorities that previously existed in seven different agencies under one roof. Prior to the passage of the Wall Street Reform Act, no single agency had effective tools to set the rules for and oversee the whole market, and consumer financial protection was not anyone’s top priority. The result was a system where no one was sufficiently accountable for getting the job done.

In addition to being tasked with the authority to supervise financial institutions like banks and credit unions under laws that already existed, CFPB will also be able to supervise financial institutions like independent mortgage lenders payday lenders, private student loan companies, credit bureaus, and debt collectors. The Bureau will be able to make and enforce rules that protect people who rely on these types of services from abusive practices, and ensure consumers have the information they need to make good financial decisions.

In fact, CFPB is already working to make mortgage disclosure forms more clear and easier to understand by redesigning the two key federal disclosure forms that people recieve when taking out a loan to purchase a home or refinance their mortgage. To find out more about Know Before You Owe, head on over to CFPB's web site.

To exercise its full authority to protect consumers, however, CFPB needs a director. President Obama has nominated Richard Cordray, Chief of Enforcement at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former Attorney General of Ohio, to lead the Bureau. The Senate will vote on his confirmation this week, but as a new report makes clear, while Congress, the President, and the American public have made historic progress in establishing a single agency dedicated to protecting consumers, every day that CFPB goes without a Director is another day that American families remain at risk.

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We Can't Wait: Bringing Records Management into the Twenty-First Century

Posted by Cass Sunstein on November 28, 2011 at 1:10 PM EDT

Federal records are crucial to documenting the history of our national experience –the problems, the triumphs, and the challenges. They provide a prism through which future generations will view, understand, and learn from the actions of the current generation. A sensible system of records management is the backbone of open government.

For many decades, the framework for records management has been based on an approach developed in the middle of the twentieth century, involving paper and filing cabinets. Things are of course very different today. In the digital age, when many records are made and maintained in electronic form, we have extraordinary opportunities to improve records management. New steps can save money, improve efficiency, promote openness, and increase both accuracy and transparency. They can provide great benefits to posterity.

Today President Obama is taking a historic step -- and the most important step in many decades -- to improve the management of federal records. Delivering on a commitment in the recent Open Government Partnership: National Action Plan for the United States, he is calling for a large-scale transformation in how agencies maintain their records. In the process, he is inaugurating a government-wide effort to reform records management policies and practices.

Today’s Presidential Memorandum requires a number of concrete actions. The new effort calls for reports, by each agency head, describing their current plans for improving records management programs; outlining current obstacles to sound, cost-effective records management policies;and cataloging potential reforms and improvements. The agency reports will inform, and be followed, by a Records Management Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB and the National Archivist. The Directive will focus on maintaining accountability to the American public through documenting agency actions; increasing efficiency (and thus reducing costs); and switching, where feasible, from paper-based records to electronic records. In addition, all statutes, regulations, and policies must be reviewed to improve government-wide practices in records management. In a key provision, the President has required the Director of OMB and the National Archivist to consult with those inside and outside the government – including public stakeholders interested in improving records management and open government.

Today’s action begins a large-scale transformation in how we maintain the backbone of open government. It promises, at once, to save money, to increase accuracy, and to contribute knowledge and perspective to future generations.

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Excess Property Gets New Life, Creates Jobs

Posted by Bob Zarnetske and Denise Pease on November 1, 2011 at 10:48 AM EDT

Approximately 400 construction workers are at work transforming this former Navy supply warehouse in Brooklyn, NY into a state of the art industrial center that will provide 1,300 permanent jobs.

Recently, the U.S. General Services Administration joined with New York City officials for the groundbreaking of a project that will transform a former Navy supply warehouse in Brooklyn, built in 1918, into a small business incubator. Once completed, no longer will the nine-story structure represent a vacant excess federal building. It will soon be a hub of activity as approximately 400 construction workers prepare the structure for manufacturing businesses that are anticipated to provide 1,300 permanent jobs in the planned state of the art industrial center.

Last summer, GSA completed the successful sale of this former federal building to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which had selected a private developer to redevelop the 1.1 million square foot warehouse. The federal government received $10 million through GSA’s negotiated sale to the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

As part of the White House Campaign to Cut Waste, the Obama Administration is moving aggressively on disposal of excess properties such as this one to save taxpayer dollars and make more efficient use of the government’s real estate assets. President Obama has directed federal agencies in a Presidential Memorandum to focus on improving the management of the government’s real estate and getting unneeded properties off our books. Agencies have risen to the challenge and identified opportunities that exceed the President’s goal to realize $3 billion in savings from the government’s properties by September 30, 2012.

With a portfolio including 350 million square feet of public buildings, 200,000 federal vehicles, and a flow of goods and services throughout government totaling $95 billion, GSA is uniquely suited to ensure federal tax dollars are not wasted on properties that are excess to the Federal government’s needs. Since 2002, GSA’s Real Property Utilization and Disposal office, working with all federal landholding agencies, has disposed of over 3,355 unneeded federal properties resulting in over $5.6 billion in proceeds. With our position as the leading federal asset manger, we will continue to work with agencies to aggressively identify and dispose of underutilized buildings to make our government more sustainable and efficient.

The sale of the Brooklyn warehouse to the New York City Economic Development Corporation will deliver jobs to the region while relieving the federal government of a property that has outlived its utility.

To find out more about the federal government’s excess property list visit the White House Excess Property Map or GSA’s Real Property Utilization and Disposal site.

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Why Cancer Patients Can't Wait: "It Can Mean the Difference Between Curing Your Cancer and Not"

Posted by Colleen Curtis on October 31, 2011 at 8:00 PM EDT

President Obama today signed an executive order that directs the FDA to step up work to reduce the drug shortages and protect consumers. Jay Cuetara know just how important this is: in August, the center where he was receiving chemotherapy ran out of the drug being used to treat his cancer, which "can mean the difference between curing your cancer and not," the San Francisco man explained.

The President's action means that drug companies will be required to let the FDA know earlier about the potential for drug shortages so that they can respond successfully. If we find out that prices are being driven up because shortages are being made worse by manipulations of companies or distributors, agencies will be empowered to stop those practices. And the FDA and the Department of Justice will be investigating any kinds of abuses that would lead to drug shortages.

As the President said today, we can't wait for action. "We'll still be calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill that will provide additional tools to the FDA and others that can make a difference. But until they act, we will go ahead and move."

Update: Check out a video from Bonnie Frawley, a pharmacy manager from Boston, who talks about what the President’s order will mean for hospitals.

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Mapping Out the American Jobs Act

Posted by Matt Compton on October 27, 2011 at 6:06 PM EDT

The American Jobs Act is a big proposal that can be hard to visualize, so we wanted to put together a new tool to help show the impact.

Our new map breaks down specific ways the President's plan helps to create jobs and put money back in families' pockets, state by state.

If you wanted to see what a typical tax cut looks like for a family in Texas, it's right here: $1,460.

Teacher jobs in North Carolina? 13,400.

Money for roads and bridges in Colorado? $494.8 million.

Take the time to dig in and learn how the American Jobs Act would help your state and community -- and share the map with those you know.

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We Can't Wait to Help America's Graduates

Posted by Arne Duncan and Melody Barnes on October 26, 2011 at 1:27 PM EDT

President Barack Obama waves to the crowd after arriving at the University of Colorado Denver campus, in Denver, Colo., Oct. 26, 2011. The President delivered remarks on the steps the Administration is taking to increase college affordability by making it easier to manage student loan debt. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In this globally competitive, knowledge-based economy, higher education has never been more important. Simply put, America cannot lead in the 21st century without the best educated, most competitive workforce in the world. Nations that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow, which is why some form of higher education is an absolute must.

We also know that college costs have never been higher -- or more difficult to manage. The Administration has already provided aid to millions of students with historic investments in programs like Pell Grants and the American Opportunity Tax Credit. But we realize that many borrowers are struggling to both pay off their loans and make ends meet every month. And fear of being saddled with debt in the long run may deter many potential students from enrolling in college. They need help now.

That’s why today, President Obama announced new efforts to make college more affordable by helping millions of borrowers better manage their federal student loan debt. We’re taking executive action with two measures that will bring relief to borrowers by lowering their monthly loan payments -- at no cost to taxpayers.

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We Can't Wait To Help Homeowners Refinance Their Mortgages

Posted by Matt Compton on October 24, 2011 at 2:04 PM EDT

In a typical recession, this is how you expect a recovery to get its legs: Growing families begin to invest in new homes. That investment works its way through the economy. Builders, suppliers, realtors, and the broader community all benefit.

Today, that isn't happening.

In 2006, the median home price in the United States was $227,100. By May of this year, that price had fallen to $158,700.

Already, at least 5 million people have lost their homes due to foreclosure, and today, one in every three homes purchased is the product of a short sale or a foreclosed property.

Worse still, across the country, nearly 11 million owe more than their property is worth.

Millions of these people have done everything right. They've paid all their bills and kept current on their home loans. But right now, they're stuck with higher payments because their mortgages are underwater. They're not eligible to refinance because the decline in home prices have made their property worth less than what they owe. And that's a problem President Obama knows must be addressed.

All of these factors have contributed to a climate where new homes are being built at the lowest rate since World War II and where homeowners feel trapped by financial circumstances outside their control. Those two things together are holding back the recovery.

We can't wait to help homeowners. The situation is too serious, and too much good can come from improving the state of housing in this country.

So today, President Obama is taking action. It starts with finding ways to allow homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

The Home Affordable Refinance Program is designed to do just that. To date, it's already helped nearly 1 million homeowners improve their financial situations. But up until now, eligibility regulations and costs associated with the program have kept it from having a wider impact.

Now, a new set of rules will open the program to nearly anyone with a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac -- no matter what they owe -- so long as they are current on their payments, have no late payments in the last six months, and have not made more than one late payment in the past year.

The group that manages the program, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will also waive a set of unnecessary costs and fees that were dissuading some from taking advantage of the program and work to get rid of certain restrictions in order to increase competition among lenders.

Millions of individuals could see up to $2,500 in savings every year.

But good as this program might prove to be, alone it won't be enough. The thing that pushes most homeowners into foreclosure is unemployment. Knowing that, Congress still has the opportunity to pass a housing program with sweeping potential -- the American Jobs Act.

Until they do, President Obama isn't waiting on lawmakers to take action. Today's announcement is just the start of things this Administration will do to get the economy growing again -- even if Congress refuses to make jobs a priority.

President Obama also can't wait for Congress to:
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Dismantling the Myths Around Wall Street Reform - Day 2: A Look at U.S. Competitiveness

Posted by Neal S. Wolin on October 18, 2011 at 4:57 PM EDT

Ed. Note: Cross-posted from Treasury Notes

On the blog this week, we’re looking at some of the myths surrounding Wall Street Reform and setting the record straight. Today’s myth:

Myth #2: Wall Street Reform Puts the U.S. at a Competitive Disadvantage Internationally

Fact: The suggestion is puzzling—that a stronger and more stable financial system would create a competitive disadvantage. The strong protections offered by U.S. markets for much of the 20th century helped make our financial system the envy of the world. Rather than disadvantage the U.S. financial system, Wall Street Reform will assure investors that U.S. institutions and markets remain the world’s most attractive destination for investment—dynamic and innovative, but with a renewed strength and resilience.

In the wake of the financial crisis, the U.S. set a strong example by immediately committing to comprehensive financial reform. At the G-20 meeting in April 2009, and at multiple meetings since, world leaders have committed to a framework for financial reform to close regulatory gaps, end opportunities for arbitrage across regulatory systems, and prevent a global race to the bottom. Key elements of this framework included improving firms’ capital and liquidity positions, reforming the derivatives markets, and developing policies to address the financial risks posed by large, systemically important financial institutions. The United States moved first, enacting comprehensive financial reform last summer, and consistent with their international commitments, other major financial systems are now putting their legal and regulatory frameworks in place.

Strong U.S. leadership has been key to the important progress the world has made in the G-20 and other international fora. Working with our international counterparts, we have been able to reach global agreement on capital and liquidity requirements—to make sure that banks are better protected against stress—and are moving towards stronger standards for the derivatives markets, which were a major source of risk during the financial crisis. At the G-20 Finance Ministers meeting last week, we agreed to enhanced prudential standards for large, systemically important financial institutions, along with a new G-20 framework to resolve these firms without widespread disruption and cost to taxpayers.

Of course, as we implement our reform in the United States, it’s important that the rest of the world move forward as well, and we will continue to monitor progress in other jurisdictions. A level playing field is crucial to making sure that U.S. firms remain competitive and to preventing risk from simply shifting to other parts of the world.

The critics of reform should remember that in order to remain competitive, U.S. firms need a financial system that combines dynamism and a capacity for innovation with robust protections for investors and consumers. A strong foundation against financial shocks, whether domestic or international, is a crucial element of a strong economy: one that can attract investment; support long-term growth and job creation; and help protect American businesses, investors, and families in times of stress.

Neal S. Wolin is Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.

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Cutting Red Tape to Help Create Jobs

Posted by Jeff Zients on October 11, 2011 at 9:56 AM EDT

Today, as President Obama meets with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Administration is announcing the selection of 14 infrastructure projects around the country that will be expedited through permitting and environmental review processes. This is an important next step in the Administration’s efforts to improve the efficiency of federal reviews needed to help job-creating infrastructure projects move as quickly as possible from the drawing board to completion. And it’s just one example of the President’s commitment to cutting red tape to help create jobs – the lessons we learn from expediting these projects will help us reform and improve the permitting and review process in the future.

Today’s announcement comes as a result of the Presidential Memorandum President Obama issued in late August at the recommendation of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.Through the Presidential Memorandum, the President directed agencies to expedite environmental reviews and permit decisions for a selection of high priority infrastructure projects that will create a significant number of jobs, have already identified necessary funding, and where the significant steps remaining before construction are within the control and jurisdiction of the federal government and can be completed within 18 months. The projects the agencies chose represent diverse sectors of the economy and combined will support the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.

Improving the federal government’s permitting and environmental review process is one of several areas where the Administration has made strides implementing the Jobs Council’s recommendations and promoting job growth. From helping small businesses grow, to bolstering travel and tourism to the U.S., to cutting through regulatory red tape, the Administration has aggressively promoted job growth in line with the Jobs Council recommendations. For example, by accelerating payments from federal agencies to small business government contractors, we’re getting money into the hands of small businesses faster so they can reinvest that money in the economy and drive job growth. We are also streamlining existing regulations, with a priority on implementing changes that benefit small businesses and spur job growth.

As the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness has highlighted, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of federal permit decisions and environmental reviews is one critical step the federal government can take to accelerate job creation. While many of these review processes are not under the control of the federal government -- state, local, and tribal governments are partners in the effort, as well -- the Obama Administration is committed to reforming the federal permitting and environmental review process to ensure that it runs as efficiently as possible while continuing to protect the health and safety of all Americans, and to preserve opportunities for public participation in federal decision-making. That’s why starting at the end of November, the public will also be able to track the progress of projects under review through one central web page. Stay tuned for more news about that in the near future.

In addition to unveiling the projects selected for expedited review today, the Administration will also instruct agencies throughout the executive branch to gather comprehensive information regarding their reviews of infrastructure projects, and the best practices they have developed. The Administration will use that information to develop recommendations to further improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of Federal permitting and environmental review, without compromising our responsibility to protect safety, public health, and the environment, through measures such as adopting sector-specific guidelines for timely reviews of permitting applications; encouraging early engagement with stakeholders; coordinating federal reviews with those of state, local and tribal regulatory agencies; and instituting greater oversight of the overall process.

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Tackling Waste in Contracting

Posted by Daniel Gordon on September 29, 2011 at 1:06 PM EDT

As part of the Administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released guidance today to reduce wasteful duplication in federal contracting. Too often in the past, agency spending for many commonly-used items was fragmented across multiple departments, programs, and components, which means that agencies often spent time writing hundreds of separate contracts, with pricing that varies widely. The result is a waste of limited staff time and energy, and prices that are not as good as they should be. At a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, Vice President Biden pointed out that by leveraging their purchasing power agencies can save taxpayer dollars. He directed each agency leader to conduct a waste and efficiency review, targeting unnecessary or inefficient spending in areas like contracting.

OFPP’s new guidance will aid agencies in eliminating waste and carrying out the reviews ordered by the Vice President by addressing concerns, raised by GAO and others, that agencies may be unnecessarily duplicating each other’s contracting efforts. This guidance requires agencies to prepare ”business cases” - analyses to ensure they aren’t duplicating an existing contract and that they are getting the best value for taxpayers- before they establish or renew certain interagency and agency-specific contracts for commonly-used goods and services, such as office supplies and wireless services. Doing this kind of due diligence and comparison-shopping is something that many families across the country do, and it is especially important that the Federal government weigh all the options before entering into large contracts and agreements whose scope would overlap contracts that already exist. In the business case, agencies are required to balance the value of creating a new contract against the benefit of using an existing one, and whether the expected return from investment in the proposed contract is worth the taxpayer resources. Insisting on that cost/benefit analysis in the business cases should go a long way to avoiding duplicative contracts.

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Campaign to Cut Waste in Action: $2 Billion Saved

Posted by Jack Lew on September 14, 2011 at 6:53 PM EDT

Ed note: this article has been cross-posted from the OMB blog

When he launched the Campaign to Cut Waste in June, President Obama asked the Vice President to take on a new role holding the Cabinet accountable for cutting waste in their agencies to help make government more efficient and responsive to the American people. As a part of that effort, the Vice President today convened the first Cabinet waste reduction meeting and announced over $2 billion in anti-waste measures.

In these challenging budgetary times, ensuring that every agency is rooting out waste and saving taxpayer dollars is more important than ever. We have made great strides in the last two years – shrinking contract spending for the first time in 13 years, identifying $3 billion in cost reductions from IT projects across government, and getting rid of property we no longer need and working aggressively to realize the President’s goal of saving $3 billion in real estate costs by the year 2012 – but we must continue to be vigilant and innovative about driving efficiency. That’s why the President and Vice President have made the Campaign to Cut Waste an Administration-wide priority.

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Income and Poverty in 2010: Why Congress Should Pass the American Jobs Act

Posted by Katharine Abraham on September 13, 2011 at 12:00 AM EDT

New data released today on income and poverty in 2010 underscore the need for Congress to pass the President’s American Jobs Act without delay. With the first full year of data following the deepest recession since the Great Depression now in, we see an unacceptably high poverty rate and families struggling to get by on less income.

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President Obama: There’s Something Wrong with our Politics that We Need to Fix

Posted by Colleen Curtis on August 11, 2011 at 5:09 PM EDT

President Obama today urged Americans to use the current Congressional break as an opportunity to talk to their Representatives and tell them to take the necessary steps to grow our economy.

He was visiting an advanced battery manufacturing plant in Holland, MI to highlight the key role that innovative technologies will play in the future of the U.S. auto industry. He sympathized with the frustration Americans are feeling over the inaction in Washington, and acknowledged that partisan politics are getting in the way of our nation’s ability to create jobs and erase the legacy of debt that is hanging over the economy. “There is nothing wrong with our country,” he told the audience of auto workers. “There’s something wrong with our politics that we need to fix.”

The President outlined a series of things that can be done right now to put more money in the pockets of American workers, and said that the best way to make sure they happen is to let Congress know “you’ve had enough of theatrics.” Among the steps Congress can take as soon as they return to Washington:
- Extend the payroll tax cut so that middle class families have more money in their paychecks next year. If you've got more money in your paycheck, you're more likely to spend it, and that means businesses of all sizes will have more customers. They'll be in a better position to hire.
- Extend unemployment benefits so that millions of workers who are still pounding the pavement looking for jobs can support their families.
- Pass a bipartisan road construction bill. There are over a million construction workers out of work after the housing boom went bust, just as a lot of America needs rebuilding. We can put these workers back to work by rebuilding our roads and bridges and railways.
- Pass the patent reform bill to help our innovators and entrepreneurs get their job-creating ideas to market faster.
- Pass the trade agreements that will help businesses sell more American-made goods and services to Asia and South America, supporting tens of thousands of jobs here at home.
- We’ve got hundreds of thousands of bright, talented, skilled Americans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and the President recently proposed several initiatives to make sure our veterans are able to navigate this difficult labor market and succeed in the civilian workforce. He proposed the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits, challenged the private sector to train or hire 100,000 Unemployed Veterans, and proposed programs to ensure the men and women in uniform are career ready and transition back to the private sector.
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President Obama on Common Sense Steps to Grow the Economy

Posted by Nikki Sutton on August 8, 2011 at 6:00 PM EDT

Download Video: mp4 (100MB) | mp3 (10MB)

This afternoon, while speaking to the press from the State Dining Room, President Obama addressed the news from Friday that the United States received a downgrade by one of the credit rating agencies:

The fact is, we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction. That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office. And we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that the gridlock in Washington over the last several months has not been constructive, to say the least. We knew from the outset that a prolonged debate over the debt ceiling -- a debate where the threat of default was used as a bargaining chip -- could do enormous damage to our economy and the world’s. That threat, coming after a string of economic disruptions in Europe, Japan and the Middle East, has now roiled the markets and dampened consumer confidence and slowed the pace of recovery.

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President Obama: Our Problems Are Eminently Solvable

Posted by Colleen Curtis on August 8, 2011 at 5:58 PM EDT

The President today outlined a series of steps Congress can take to quickly add momentum to our nation's economic growth. Click on the links below to find out more about how each of these proposals can help propel our economy forward:
- Extend the payroll tax cut so that middle class families have more money in their paychecks next year. If you've got more money in your paycheck, you're more likely to spend it, and that means businesses of all sizes will have more customers. They'll be in a better position to hire.
We also need to make sure that millions of workers who are still pounding the pavement looking for jobs to support their families are not denied needed unemployment benefits.

If Congress fails to extend the payroll tax and unemployment insurance it could mean one million fewer jobs and half a percent less growth.
- Pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. There are over a million construction workers out of work after the housing boom went bust, just as a lot of America needs rebuilding. We can connect the two by helping private companies rebuild our roads and bridges and railways.
- Pass the patent reform bill to give our entrepreneurs the chance to get their job-creating ideas to market faster by streamlining the patent process.
- Pass the trade agreements that will help businesses sell more American-made goods and services to Asia and South America, supporting tens of thousands of jobs here at home.
Trade Adjustment Assistance Fact Sheet
South Korea Free Trade Agreement
Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Panama Free Trade Agreement

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Taking Part in Democracy Through Open Source Software

Posted by Bob Burbach, Andrew Carpenter, and Dave Augustine on August 4, 2011 at 8:08 AM EDT

Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

Two years ago we sat in a coffee shop combing through data the newly launched Data.gov site. There were just over 3 weeks before the submission deadline in the Apps for America 2 competition and we were intently looking for a data set that we believed we could build something around. Our criteria were perhaps a bit ambitious - high frequency of release, extensive, and, if exposed properly, impactful. When we stumbled upon the Federal Register data set it was clear we had what we were looking for. And it was clear we had a lot of work to do. One thing we never envisioned on that day was that our project would end up residing at a dot gov (.gov) domain and that we would have the honor of being named 'Champions of Change'.

Over the 3 weeks following our discovery of the Federal Register we spent our evenings and weekends working to understand and contextualize the data (we're not lawyers!) and to re-envision how regulatory data could be presented. What we quickly realized in that first month was that the information contained in the Federal Register was "important" - covering everything from what you are allowed to carry onboard your next flight, to how your next bottle of sunscreen is labeled, to the stickers on the window of your next new car; these regulations affect the way we work and play. We believe they need and deserve input from every citizen. Like we mentioned sometimes we're a bit ambitious...

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INFOGRAPHIC: Where Does our National Debt Come From?

Posted by Macon Phillips on July 26, 2011 at 4:14 PM EDT

One of the fundamental things to understand when considering the debate about reducing our national debt is how we accumulated so much in the first place.

To explain the impact various policies have had over the past decade, shifting us from projected surpluses to actual deficits and, as a result, running up the national debt, the White House has developed a graphic for you to review and share:

As you can see, we've also included a quote from President Obama's speech last night that sums up the basic issues:

For the last decade, we’ve spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.

As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more -– on tax cuts for middle-class families to spur the economy; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.

Because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it.

And it's worth noting that, among many others, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the New York Times have addressed this issue too.

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A Big Week for the New Consumer Agency

Posted by Elizabeth Warren on July 18, 2011 at 9:21 AM EDT

Richard Cordray, a former Ohio Attorney General and the CFPB's agency's current head of enforcement, is President Obama's nominee to lead the new agency July 18, 2011.

This is a big week for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Today, the President will announce his intent to nominate Richard Cordray to serve as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. On Thursday, the CFPB makes its transition from a start-up to a real, live agency with the authority to write rules and to supervise the activities of America's largest banks.

Rich will be a strong leader for this agency. He has a proven track record of fighting for families during his time as head of the CFPB enforcement division, as Attorney General of Ohio, and throughout his career. He was one of the first senior executives I recruited for the agency, and his hard work and deep commitment make it clear he can make many important contributions in leading it. Rich is smart, he is tough, and he will make a stellar Director. I am very pleased for him and very pleased for the CFPB.

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