In This Issue:

Leading the Past Week; Legislative Branch; Executive Branch; and Upcoming Hearings.

Excerpt from Leading the Past Week -

President Obama touched on both new and old initiatives in his State of the Union though avoided rhetorical attacks against large financial institutions. Instead, that torch was picked up by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who did not disappoint her supporters on the left with her sharp questioning of regulators at her first hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. Raising issues such as whether large institutions were “too large to jail” certainly generated attention that to date, Senator Warren had worked to avoid. In the Finance Committee, Treasury nominee Jack Lew easily survived his nomination hearing as was widely anticipated. Not so lucky was FHA Commissioner Carol Galante, who was grilled by the House Financial Services as part of a series of hearings on the agency’s financial situation.