President Barack Obama intends to nominate former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to a new consumer financial protection bureau that was a central feature of the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform bill that overhauled banking regulations.

White House and administration sources say Obama plans to announce the nomination Monday at the White House.

Richard Cordray

President Obama originally slated Elizabeth Warren, who has been assembling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as a special adviser to the White House and to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to lead the new agency.

Cordray would have to be confirmed by the Senate. Warren faced opposition in the Senate and would have had a difficult time wining confirmation.

Cordray now serves as director of enforcement for the agency.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee collected more 350,000 petition signatures supporting Warren’s nomination.

“With her track record of standing up to Wall Street and fighting for consumers, Elizabeth Warren was the best qualified to lead this bureau that she conceived — and we imagine Richard Cordray would agree. That said, Rich Cordray has been a strong ally of Elizabeth Warren’s and we hope he will continue her legacy of holding Wall Street accountable,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in a July 17 email.

Cordray was unsuccessful in his November 2010 re-election bid as Ohio’s attorney general. He was elected in 2006 as Ohio’s treasurer, then was elected in 2008 to finish the term of attorney general. Before that, the 51-year-old Democrat was treasurer of Franklin County, first solicitor general in the Ohio attorney general’s office, a state representative and an undefeated five-time champion on the “Jeopardy!” television program.

On Dec. 15, it was reported that Cordray would be head of the enforcement division for the CFPB implementation team. Cordray spoke with Toledo Free Press from Columbus on Dec. 17.

The new CFPB will address all of the household financial products that matter in people’s lives, Cordray said.

“Mortgages, credit cards, debit cards, student loans, payday loans, debt collection, credit reports, you name it. And our goal is to achieve greater transparency, comparability, fair treatment of consumers, and a system of household financial products that works for Americans and the economy and for the banks as well,” he said.

The CFPB is expected to officially begin its work as an independent agency July 21. Its website, www.consumerfinance.gov was launched in February.

Tags: CFPB, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren, Government, President Barack Obama, Richard Cordray

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 17th, 2011 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Community, Government.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The Mavs just made, ex-Cav, LeBron look foolish. Not that he needs any help with that. The Indians are leading the AL Central. The football Buckeyes are making news headlines everyday. Oh yeah and Governor Kasich is playing a little golf this weekend with POTUS, VPOTUS and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, another Ohioan.

Maybe Kasich can help get the deficit reduction discussion back on the track. After all he was the House Budget Committee Chairman in the 1990’s. Hey, Barry if you and Joe, give us something on the front side John and I may consider giving you a little sumthin’ sumthin’ on the “Back 9”. Whaddya say? We got a deal?

The style of play for the opponents is a point for contention. One not so famous political analyst prognosticated that one side will hit it left off the tee. The other side will hit it right and they can argue about who is wrong — I mean — away, once they reach the green.

With Ohio being one of the top key states in the Presidential elections to be held next November can Obama/Biden expose some weakness that can be exploited to swing Ohio back to the Democratic side of the aisle? An errant 3 wood violently sliced right into the woods or a chunky chip shot might just say more than words could ever express. Remember that great political scholar Lee Trevino uttered the profound statement: “A fade can work for you but you just can’t talk to a hook.” Didn’t that apply to the whole, left/right, liberal/conservative thing?

Will Obama/Biden take a more liberal stance, press the advantage and go for the 230 yard carry over water to the green on a par 5 or will the more conservative, Boehner/Kasich make the more prudent play laying up to a comfortable yardage. Does this give us a clue to how the issues that seem to endlessly bog down the day to day operation of our wonderfully imperfect system of government get resolved? No, probably not.

Isn’t it great though, that with all the back and forth on the TV news programs and in the press, even with the gargantuan issues these gentlemen ponder daily, that they can still get together on the golf course and play a game with far less dire consequences for a few hours.

Only in America!

Tags: Fred Altvater, Golf, Governor John Kasich, John Boehner, President Barack Obama, The Back 9, Vice President Joe Biden

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 at 11:59 am and is filed under Sports, The Back 9.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Unlike the Chrysler employees he was speaking to, not everyone was enamored with President Barack Obama’s speech while in Toledo on June 2.

Amongst that group include the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a research and educational organization which claims is “dedicated solely to helping citizens of all generations understand how tax policies, spending programs and regulations at all levels affect them now and in the future.”

“Amidst the chilidogs and the cheers he’s facing a number of difficulties that past president’s have,” NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp said. “He’s trying to walk the line for not accepting too much responsibility for current conditions yet acting like he can some how flip a switch and turn them around.”

One of the biggest issues that Sepp had with Obama’s speech was his declaration that Chrysler had already repaid its loan from the government.

“Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer from the investment we made during my watch,” Obama said. “And by the way, you guys repaid it six years ahead of schedule. Last night, we reached an agreement to sell the government’s remaining interest in the company. Soon, Chrysler will be 100 percent in private hands.”

The issue remains that although Chrysler had indeed paid the government $11.2 billion off of the original $8.5 billion loan, their debt is not yet wiped clean. The company still owes $1.3 billion from a $4 billion loan from President George W. Bush in his last month of office, a fact concealed in Obama’s speech by the phrase “during my watch.”

As for whether or not taxpayers will ever see that $1.3 billion debt repaid, a recent press release by the U.S. Treasury claimed it “unlikely.”

Obama also failed to mention the new monthly jobs report during his speech, something Sepp and others noted since he typically releases them in the beginning of each month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released later in the day that unemployment had risen to 9.1 percent (up from 7.8 percent when Obama took office) and the U.S. had created the fewest amount of jobs (54,000) in May than it had in the past eight months. An average of 220,000 jobs were created from February through April.

“He’s staked a lot of his reputation as an economic policy change agent through the stimulus package and to a lesser degree in things like the health care bill and those initiatives have come up way short of meeting expectations,” Sepp said. “There’s really no way to put a spin on the stimulus to make it a qualified or unqualified success. About the most supporters can say about it now is ‘Well, maybe it helped to keep a bad situation from getting worse.’ That’s a lot less ambitious from what it was originally touted as being able to do.”

Sepp has said that they are becoming increasingly concerned about the auto industry, as it is shifting pension liabilities to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. He believes that may well be the location of the next federal bailout.

With the economy still struggling, recent polls from ABC and the Washington Post showed that Republican Mitt Romney is quickly becoming a threat to prevent Obama’s re-election. Both candidates received 47 percent of the vote in the survey, while Romney (49 percent) held the edge over Obama (46 percent) among registered party members.

“Obama at least said that its going to take time for the economy to get better but once again as a president who was elected on a ‘change’ platform he overpromised and underdelivered,” Sepp said. “And now he’s stuck with those political consequences.

Tags: Auto industry, Government, National Taxpayers Union, Politics, President Barack Obama, taxes

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 11th, 2011 at 10:12 am and is filed under Community, Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

President Barack Obama cannot escape one giant vulnerability as he bids to keep his job: There are millions of voters who still don’t have one.

Suddenly, the snapshot of the American economy is depressing again.

Job creation is down. So is consumer confidence. And homes sales, auto sales, construction spending, manufacturing expansion.

The brutal month of May was a reminder of the economy’s fragility and the risks for an incumbent president.

Nothing that Obama oversees, not even a success as dramatic as finding and killing Osama bin Laden, will matter as much as his handling of the economy. It is the dominant driver of voter behavior. People hold their president accountable if they can’t find work in the richest country in the world.

The weakening recovery is testing the entire foundation of Obama’s optimistic economic message, that the nation is getting stronger all the time. As much as the White House says it never dwells on any single jobs report, and Obama never even mentioned the troubling one released Friday, the stakes get higher by the month.

A finally forming field of Republican presidential competitors is maneuvering into the space for the public’s attention with this message: Obama has failed.

Election Day 2012 is 17 months away, and Obama’s campaign knows incremental job growth won’t do. The unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. If it stays anywhere near there, Obama will face re-election with a higher jobless rate than any other post-war president.

In his favor, Obama still has the loudest voice to sell his message that the longer term trends, including job growth every month, are good.

Nearly halfway through a year dominated by foreign events mostly outside his control, he plans to build his next few months around economic events.

So what comes next will be a summer when both sides select the economic facts that best suit their case. It will play against a backdrop of trying to cut a massive deficit while letting the nation borrow more so it doesn’t default.

As Obama pushes his economic agenda, his re-election chances bank on more than job growth. They also depend on how well he can remind people that he inherited a recession and that compared with the early days of 2009, the country is in a better place.

“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said June 3 in Ohio, a pivotal state in the 2012 election. “You know, it’s just like if you had a bad illness, if you got hit by a truck, it’s going to take a while for you to mend. And that’s what’s happened to our economy. It’s taking a while to mend.”

Is progress enough to convince people that he deserves a second term?

If so, he can’t afford many setbacks like the new jobs report. Employers in May added just 54,000 jobs, the fewest in eight months. Almost 14 million people are jobless. Analysts suggested the economy could improve this year, but the recovery could be weak for months.

“There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery,” Obama said.

The Republicans hoping to unseat him pounced.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: “President Obama has failed to pull us out of this economic downturn.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty: “Obama’s failure to address the tough challenges” is clear.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “The administration’s policies are failing.”

Obama’s political tendency is to take the longer view. An Associated Press-GfK poll less than a month ago, for example, showed rising public optimism about the economy and his stewardship.

The election won’t be just a referendum on Obama and the unemployment rate. It also will offer a choice between his economic ideas and his opponent’s. Still, just as change worked for him last time, it can be used against him in 2012.

Even 8 percent unemployment, a goal once promoted by the administration, is hard to see now.

Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush all faced unemployment rates higher than 7.5 percent in the final months of their re-election campaigns. Reagan won, and an important factor for him was that the jobless rate was declining at the time. Carter and Bush lost.

Obama, for now, has no reason to engage the politicians trying to win his job. He instead presents himself as the workers’ champion who risked his own capital and their money in a successful bid to help Chrysler and General Motors survive and return to profitability.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to keep betting on you,” Obama told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio.

And hope they’ll do the same for him.

__

Article by White House Correspondent Ben Feller who has covered the Bush and Obama presidencies for The Associated Press.

Tags: Democrat, Election 2012, Politics, President Barack Obama, Presidential election, Republican

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 5th, 2011 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Community, Election 2012.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

President Barack Obama arrived at Toledo Express Airport at 11:30 a.m. Friday before a crowd of about 50 well-wishers who were guests of family or friends who had special connections.

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and President Barack Obama arrive

The President greeted people, shook hands and signed autographs for the crowd and departed in a limousine accompanied by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and Mayor Mike Bell.

The president’s party made an unannounced visit to have lunch at Rudy’s Hot Dog on Sylvania Avenue on its way to the Chrysler Jeep Plant in North Toledo. Mayor Bell recommended lunch at Rudy’s since he is a regular customer, according to the owner.

Harry Dionyssiou, owner of Rudy’s, said suddenly the parking lot was full of police cars with lights flashing. They were told by an officer that the president’s party was coming for lunch.

“I was so surprised, I was speechless. I thanked him for choosing Rudy’s Hot Dog and asked him what he wanted to eat. The President said he liked hot dogs so I fixed him a hot dog with everything, fries, a bowl of chili and an iced tea,” Dionyssiou said.

Harry Dionyssiou of Rudy's Hot Dog

After President Obama finished, the owner fixed him a jumbo hot dog with everything and said the president ate all of it.

Rudy’s Hot Dogs has been in business in Toledo for 90 years when Dionyssiou’s family opened the restaurant on Sylvania Avenue. It’s now located in a newer building after a theater on the site was torn down. They currently have six locations in the Toledo area.

The people coming out to greet the president’s party at the airport were invited by friends or relatives who had special connections with the president’s party. One woman said her son-in-law was the pilot of Air Force One.

The Martinez family was there as guests of their son, Captain Jeff Martinez of the U.S. Air Force, who is in charge of communications on Air Force One. They received a personal tour of the president’s plane from their son.

Jeannette James of Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Toledo was invited by the Secret Service agent who rented the limousines for the president’s motorcade. She said she’s provided limos for Vice President Biden and other dignitaries but never the president before this occasion.

This reporter, his wife Jane and brother Jeffrey Ramsey were invited by nephew Steven Ramsey of the U.S. Navy, who serves on the communications team for the White House. Although he was unable to make the trip to his hometown since he just returned from France, he made sure several of his relatives were present.

Steve is a native of Toledo, graduate of Rogers High School, and son of Carla Wooten of Toledo and Michael Ramsey of Lyons. He joined the Navy shortly after graduating from high school and has served for 11 years.

His aunt, Laura Frost, a 27-year retired veteran of the U.S. Army was almost turned away from the welcoming party because she came in her Army uniform. We could not figure out why she couldn’t attend in uniform.

Laura Frost, US Army veteran gets autograph

She was told by her nephew on the phone and the security people on-site that there were several other service men and women present who were not in uniform. They were asked not to wear their uniforms as it would be a distraction for the President and not fair to the rest of the crowd.

Ms. Frost finally agreed to remove her Army jacket and rank insignias from her blouse so she could enter the visitor’s area. She was able to obtain Obama’s autograph on a newspaper she brought with headlines about his election victory on it.

Several other people were turned away because they were not aware of the dress code for such occasions that doesn’t allow jeans, shorts or casual attire.

However, the enthusiastic crowd greeted the President with cheers, shaking hands, getting autographs and taking pictures of him before he departed the airport in the limousine and accompanying motorcade.

Security was evident at the National Flight Service terminal where Air Force One parked in front of the awaiting crowd. The Toledo Police bomb squad, bomb-sniffing dogs, numerous Ohio State Highway patrolmen and Secret Service agents patrolled the site.

It was exciting to see Air Force One land at Toledo Express Airport and President Obama emerging from the door and waving to the crowd.

We’ll never know how much  President Obama will remember of his visit to Toledo on June 3, but hundreds of local residents who greeted his arrival, witnessed him having lunch at Rudy’s and heard him speak at the Chrysler Jeep Plant won’t soon forget every detail.

Tags: Government, Mayor Mike Bell, President Barack Obama, Rudy's Hot Dog, Senator Sherrod Brown, Toledo

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 4th, 2011 at 11:28 am and is filed under Community, Government.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

In his trip to Toledo on June 3, President Barack Obama announced to the Toledo Chrysler plant that the company has paid off its debt to the government.

“Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer from the investment we made during my watch,” Obama said. “And by the way, you guys repaid it six years ahead of schedule. Last night, we reached an agreement to sell the government’s remaining interest in the company. Soon, Chrysler will be 100 percent in private hands, earlier and faster than anybody believed.”

Obama said that all three members of the auto industry were turning a profit for the first time since 2004 and that automakers were gaining market share for the first time since 1995.

“I’m proud to announce the government has been completely repaid for the investments we made under my watch by Chrysler because of the outstanding work that you guys did,” said Obama to the crowd. “That’s because of you.”

Obama told those in attendance that two years ago the government faced many choices pertaining to the auto industry and that many in Washington thought they should do “nothing,” which would have resulted in “an uncontrolled freefall” for U.S. automakers.

“If we let Chrysler and GM fail, plants like this would have shut down, dealers and suppliers across the country would have shriveled up, and Ford and other automakers could have failed too, because they wouldn’t have had the suppliers that they needed,” Obama said. “By the time the dominoes stopped falling, more than a million jobs, and countless communities and a proud industry that helped build America’s middle class for generations wouldn’t have been around anymore.”

Ultimately, Obama said the most important step was to “refuse” to let that happen. He said the government ultimately decided to rescue the auto industry and retool it to avoid future struggles.

“We said that if everyone involved was willing to take the tough steps and make the painful sacrifices that were needed to become competitive, then we would invest in your future and the future of communities like Toledo,” Obama said. “We would have your back. I placed my bet on you. I put my faith in the American worker. And I’ll tell you what — I’m going to do that every day of the week because what you’ve done vindicates my faith.”

Before he left, however, Obama warned that problems were still out there for the industry and the economy.

“We still face some challenges,” Obama said. “This economy took a big hit. It’s just like if you had a bad illness or if you got hit by a truck. It’s going to take a while for you to mend. That’s what’s happened to our economy, it’s taking a while to mend.”

Obama arrived in Toledo around 11:30 a.m. and was greeted by Toledo Mayor Mike Bell, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur.

Before his press conference, Obama joined Bell, Brown and Kaptur for lunch at local restaurant Rudy’s Hot Dogs.

“For those of you who I’ve met up close I just want you to know that I stopped by Rudy’s and had two chili dogs with onions,” Obama said. “I’ve been looking for a mint backstage. It tasted pretty good going down though.”

Tags: Chrysler, Economy, President Barack Obama, Toledo

This entry was posted on Friday, June 3rd, 2011 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Community, Government, Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.