While the nation is glued to the news relating to President Obama’s decision to seek congressional approval for military action in Syria, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s focus has been on a different area of congressional business: banking and the financial industry; her political wheelhouse. That is not to say that she has been silent on the issue of the Syria vote. In a statement last week, she praised the president’s decision to seek congressional approval, but maintained that it was important to consider the complexity of the situation carefully in order to ensure that whatever action is taken is the right decision for the United States (Huffington Post). Now, however, with the possible delay of the Syria vote, the issue may have been temporarily moved to the back burner.
Much of the attention being paid to Senator Warren this week is due to her position on the Senate Banking Committee and the upcoming need to decide on a new head of the Federal Reserve. Larry Summers, one of the leading candidates (and predicted to be Obama's top pick), is facing strong opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike (Business Insider). In order to attempt to shore up his chances, Mr. Summers has reached out to Senator Warren seeking her support for his candidacy. This is quite a long shot given the fact that Warren has been a vocal critic of Summers due to his concerted effort to deregulate the financial sector while acting as the Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton (Washington Post). Warren has taken no official side on the question of Larry Summers, telling the White House that while she will not publicly take a position, she has "serious concerns" (Bloomberg). Given the fact that Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown and Jeff Merkley (all Democrats on the Banking Committee) have already expressed their disinclination to vote for Summers, the support of Warren is almost imperative if he is to have a chance to get his nomination out of committee (CNN Blog).
Senator Warren also delivered two notable speeches this week. The first speech presented at the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles on Sunday the 8th and the second at the George Washington University on Thursday the 12th. The speech at GW marked the five year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and, true to her platform, was an impassioned address calling for true regulation of the financial sector in order to bring about an end to the notion of "too big to fail". Specifically, she called for support for her 21st century Glass-Steagall Act which would force a separation between banks' run-of-the-mill depository business and their risky investment banking (Wall Street Journal Blog). Warren also criticized the implementation (or rather, the lack of implementation) of the Dodd-Frank Law. She asserted that pressure from the financial industry prevented regulators from implementing 60% of the rules required by Dodd Frank, and, in fact, the biggest banks in the country (all of whom received bailout money) are bigger than they were in 2006 (Boston Globe). Warren's speech used the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers as a symbol and a reminder that the banks are already too big to fail, jail, trial, manage or regulate, and are getting bigger.
Her speech at the AFL-CIO Convention in LA received quite a bit of attention and has led to even more speculation about her plans for the future. This speech hit all the populist high points from 20th century victories like child labor laws, minimum wage laws, and the New Deal, to more recent victories like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (The Daily Beast). In addition to her usual points like regulators dropping the Dodd-Frank ball, the need to reinstate Glass-Steagall, and the importance of regulation which actually works, she called out the federal court system as being in the pocket of big business and the financial sector, saying:
"You follow this pro-corporate trend to its logical conclusion, and sooner or later you’ll end up with a Supreme Court that functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business. (Politico)"
While this statement helped her speech make national news, a great deal of speculation has been stirred up by the fact that it sounded distinctly like a presidential campaign speech. "Our agenda is America's agenda", she had the crowd chanting, "and if we fight for it, we win! (Washington Post)" While officially, Warren has never even hinted that she might be considering a higher office, speculation has run rampant. She has been called the Howard Dean of 2016 and was tied to a long line of populist candidates: Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, Gary Hart and Walter Mondale, Paul
Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and, most recently, Howard Dean (Washington Post).
2 comments:
It’s comforting to hear debate over an issue other than Syria on Capitol Hill this week – and even more comforting to hear about a Senator that is not using a breach of international law as an opportunity for campaigning and self-promotion in the media. Warrens focus, as a lawmaker, on the financial sector, a domestic issue, is something the American people, in their negative reaction to military intervention in Syria, support more so than internal conflicts in a nation that most Americans are not educated about (CNN). As time puts the financial crisis of 2008 further back in the pages of U.S. history, the Senator’s choice to recognize its anniversary and use it as an opportunity to put into perspective the growth the banking industry has experienced acts as a reminder of the necessity of regulation of the financial industry to prevent a repetition of past mistakes. I was not aware of Warren’s possible bid for the U.S. Presidency in 2016, so this piece of information was very informing and explanatory for Warren’s behavior as far as keeping her comments on the Syria issue short and straightforward – not to create ammunition for a future competitor to use in a smear campaign.
Reference:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/politics/syria-poll-main/
I could not agree more that it is good when a politician is able to talk about something other than simply the hot button issue du jour. This is not to say that the crisis in Syria is not deserving of the world's attention. However, with people's disturbingly short attention spans, an issue like that can tend to gum up media attention and allow other important issues (like picking a new person to head the Federal Reserve) to slip by virtually unnoticed.
It is certainly true that people are more likely to be in support of discussion of the economy over discussion of Syria, but, unfortunately, they are not always very educated about our complex and often esoteric financial system either. With all of the conflicting views and misinformation on issues like economic regulation and tax rates, discussion of the economy has the potential to quickly lose the interest of the average citizen.
As far as a bid for the Presidency goes, nothing is even close to official. It is all simply speculation and political tea reading by pundits. Whether it was intended as a campaign speech or not, it is definitely worth watching! The full speech can be found here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deruS2zJ4aU). I think it would be interesting to see how she would do in the race given the fact that she was only elected to Congress last year. She would certainly have a different approach than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden who seem to be the front-runners for the Democratic ticket. Not to mention that her "never back down from a fight" mentality has made more than one enemy, both on Capital Hill and on Wall Street.
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