In This Issue:
Leading the Past Week; Legislative Branch; Executive Branch; Miscellaneous; and UPCOMING HEARINGS.
Excerpt from Leading the Past Week
The embers of hope for a bipartisan renaissance in Congress, or at least the Senate, continued to glow as Majority Leader Reid appeared to have acquiesced from the calls from Majority Leader Cantor and Minority Leader McConnell, among others, and decided to take up the House passed version of the capital formation bills. Despite the opposition of a small group of Senators who are concerned about the potential evisceration of consumer protections in the legislation, and some Conservative Republicans opposed to the inclusion of an expanded reauthorization for the Export-Import (?Ex-Im?) Bank, the Senate is likely to pass the bill by the end of next week. The other major news story of the past week was all of the attention given to the resignation letter from Goldman Sachs that Greg Smith had published in the New York Times. Without judging the contents of his letter or its timing, the more pressing policy question is whether the publicity generated by his letter will galvanize supporters of the Volcker rule, to push back against the continuously mounting opposition.
Please see full publication below for more information.