Merry Christmas – Sretan Bozic – Feliz Navidad

Our President and First Lady Extend Holiday Greetings

Senator Webb Commemorates 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack

Congressman Jim Moran Updates Virginians On Mark Center Issues

By January 1st, the Mark Center is slated to house 5,000 Defense Department employees, a move that has been determined in multiple studies and reports will cause gridlock at I-395 and Seminary Road in Alexandria, negatively affecting the travel of some 200,000 daily commuters.

Last week, as reported by the Washington Post, the latest, most damning report was released. This time by the Department of Defense’s own Inspector General (IG). The IG report revealed serious, galling flaws in the Army’s Transportation Management Plan. It makes clear, once-and-for-all, that the decisions that went into planning for the Mark Center were grossly inadequate and the full relocation of employees needs to be slowed in order to construct the necessary transportation improvements.

The report revealed many deeply troubling findings including:

• The Army used incorrect information, conducting traffic counts on the roads during federal holidays when traffic is dramatically lower (35 percent less than normal);
• The Army ignored national standards and failed to properly study the entire roadway network surrounding the Mark Center;
• The Army focused only on 6 key intersections; a normal study following national standards would have looked at a 2 mile radius; the result would have been 63 intersections affected;
• No assessment of traffic safety was completed;
• No assessment of emergency response needs was completed;
• No assessment of the effect the construction of transportation mitigation measures would have on traffic;
• The Army failed to consult with local transportation professionals from VDOT, Fairfax County and the City of Alexandria.

We are not just at the eleventh hour, it’s 11:59. I have joined Senators Jim Webb, Mark Warner, and Representative Gerry Connolly to repeat our call for a cap to be placed on the number of parking spaces being used at the building until sufficient transportation infrastructure is put in place. The recommendations made by the IG must also be implemented expeditiously. I will keep you updated as any new developments arise in the coming days.

Sincerely,

James P. Moran

GOP Wants To Change Conversation About Occupy Wall Street and Economic Inequality

Tim Geithner Remarks About Changes In Our Financial System

Note:  The following are from the remarks Secretary Tim Geithner “The Macroprudential Toolkit: Measurement and Analysis” Conference … you can read the complete text here

We are working to put in place stronger protections for the broader financial markets, the derivatives markets, mortgage markets, repo and securities lending markets, to help protect the economy from the damage caused by financial shocks and to reduce the risk of contagion from weaker institutions to stronger ones.

We now have better tools to resolve large, complex financial institutions, so that when they make mistakes in the future, we can protect the broader economy from the damage they cause when they fail, without putting taxpayers’ money at risk.

We are making the largest financial institutions pay more for the costs of maintaining a more stable financial system.

We now have limits on the size and concentration of banks in our financial system so that businesses and individuals are less vulnerable to the mistakes they may make in the future. These limits are much tougher than exist in any other major economy.

We are changing the structure of compensation in the financial system, by giving shareholders more power, improving disclosure, and limiting the ability of firms to pay their senior executives in a way that insulates them from the losses that can come from taking too much risk.

We are improving the quality of disclosure around the risks banks face, and leading a global effort to improve the design of stress tests.

We are bringing the shadow financial system out of the dark, and extending the reach of constraints on leverage to firms that could threaten the stability of the financial system.

We are working to reduce the degree of moral hazard in the financial system, while strengthening its resilience against financial panics.

We are working to give the financial regulators the greater resources they need to enforce stronger protections for investors and consumers.

We are redesigning consumer protection in the United States, so that we provide better safeguards against predation and fraud and better disclosure so that consumers can make better decisions about how to borrow responsibly.

As a result of these reforms and those still ahead, our financial system is already in much stronger shape than before the crisis. We closed down the weakest parts, and forced the survivors to meet a tough market test of viability.