President Obama signed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act last June to prevent another financial crisis like the one in 2008 that erased trillions of dollars of household debt, left millions of Americans without jobs, and collapsed some of nation’s biggest financial institutions as well as our housing market.

The financial crisis was the result of a fundamental failure from Wall Street to Washington. Wall Street took irresponsible risks that they didn’t fully understand and Washington didn’t have the authority to properly monitor or constrain risk-taking at the largest firms. When the crisis hit, the government didn’t have the tools to break apart or wind down a failing financial firm without putting the American taxpayer and the entire financial system at risk.

The Wall Street Reform Act changed that. It established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oversee and regulate banks and a whole range of financial industries--including some that had never been regulated before like payday lenders, private mortgage brokers, and debt collectors--to ensure we have the tools to avoid another crisis. And CFPB is the first-ever government agency charged with protecting and empowering American consumers-- the people who keep their money in banks, pay for goods and services with their credit cards, and rely on mortgages to buy homes or pay for college.

Unfortunately, the Senate is blocking the confirmation of the Richard Cordray, who President Obama has appointed to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Without a Director in place, the Bureau's abilities to protect Americans from unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices at the hands of the financial industry are hamstrung, and our economy remains at risk.

Today, we can do more to increase the amount of capital that flows into the hands of entrepreneurs at every stage in the growth of their companies. 

Helping these businesses grow is a top priority for the Obama Administration, as we know that small businesses create most of net new jobs that are added to the economy each year.  We have an economic imperative to make sure we support these firms through creating an environment where they have access to capital markets to help facilitate growth at every stage.

Over the past three years, we have made great progress in helping small businesses.  The President has signed into law 17 tax cuts for small businesses, from greater expensing provisions to the President’s signature call to eliminate capital gains taxes on certain investments in small businesses as well as two new small business lending funds.  SBA loans also had an all-time record year. Right now, the President continues to call on Congress to cut payroll taxes in half for nearly 6 million small businesses, providing even more incentives for them to hire and grow. 

Startups and high-growth firms – the biggest job creators – have different capital needs than other small businesses.  That’s why almost a year ago, we launched Startup America, a White House initiative to create the best possible climate for high-growth entrepreneurs across the country. Today, at the Startup America Partnership board meeting hosted at the White House, we are announcing two important initiatives that show how we are working to specifically address the needs of startup businesses.  And the President is calling on Congress to do more.

First, today we’re announcing that the Administration has taken action to create a new Early Stage Innovation Fund through SBA’s existing Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.  We’re making $1 billion available over the next 5 years to match private capital in funds that invest in early-stage, high growth-potential startup companies. SBA’s existing SBIC program just had a record year of helping over 1,000 businesses get $2.6 billion in capital, and created new vehicles like SBA’s first Impact Investment Fund, which recently launched in Michigan.

At the same time, the independent Startup America Partnership has mobilized commitments from more than 50 private-sector partners to deliver over $1 billion in value – from free software to free consulting and legal services – to 100,000 startups over the next three years.

And there’s more action we can take.  In September, when the President announced his American Jobs Act, he called on Congress to take specific steps to help small businesses raise the funds they need to innovate and grow.  Consistent with this call to action, the President is urging Congress to work on a bipartisan basis to develop these ideas by passing legislation related to:

• Crowdfunding:  Nonprofits have already harnessed the power of online fundraising and social media to help meet their mission.  In a similar way, we can create an appropriate regulatory framework for small businesses and startups to raise the capital they need from many small-dollar investors, while ensuring investor protections.
• Regulation A “Mini-Offerings”:  For small businesses seeking to raise less than $5 million, there is an existing exemption from certain SEC requirements.  But very few businesses are taking advantage of this “Regulation A” exemption today.  The President has called for raising that limit to up to $50 million, making it easier for small companies to raise the capital they need to grow.
• Creating an On-Ramp for Emerging Growth Companies:   For emerging growth companies, the vast majority of new jobs are typically created after they “go public.”  Yet from 1995 to 2010, listings on U.S. exchanges shrank from 8,000 to 5,000 while listings on non-U.S. exchanges grew from 23,000 to 40,000.  In March, after we held an Access to Capital conference, entrepreneurs and other private sector stakeholders formed an “IPO task force” and reported back to the Treasury Department with recommendations to help scale regulations for emerging growth companies while providing strong investor protections. Some of these ideas are being explored by Congress and the Administration right now.

While moving quickly to pass these initiatives, Congress must develop these proposals in ways that will continue to protect American investors. Over the past few months, we have begun to make real progress.  Members on both sides of the aisle have supported legislation consistent with the ideas that the President called for.  Legislation has passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support. And last week, these issues were highlighted at a Senate Banking Committee hearing where Chairman Tim Johnson noted “This is an issue where I believe there is real potential for bipartisan cooperation.” 

Overall, efforts like these could help improve liquidity for entrepreneurs, and help jump-start the innovative American companies of tomorrow.  At the same time, we need to ensure that as we develop these initiatives we are taking necessary measures to ensure that investors are protected – and the Administration will continue working with Congress to achieve this outcome.

The President, both of us, and leaders across the private sector understand that “one size doesn’t fit all” when it comes to helping small businesses, especially startups and high-growth firms.  Let’s make sure they can get access to the kinds of capital they need to grow and create the jobs we need now. 

Payday loans, sometimes called cash-advance loans or check-advance loans offer borrowers short‐term funds at very high interest rates that are not always clearly disclosed. On average, payday lenders charge fees of roughly $16 for a $100 two‐week loan. If borrowers miss payments, fees can begin to accumulate, resulting in extremely high total payments. Payday loan borrowers are paying nearly $4.2 billion in fees annually, according to some studies.

Even when rates and penalties are disclosed, borrowers in desperate need of cash may agree to disadvantageous loan terms. Many times, these borrowers’ financial resources have already been depleted by an emergency, sustained unemployment, or illness. Relying on payday loans to make ends meet can create a debt‐and‐fee‐spiral that some people may find extremely difficult to exit.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established to provide federal supervision and oversight over a full range of financial service providers that consumers rely on--from banks and credit unions, to payday lenders and independent mortgage brokers. President Obama has nominated Richard Cordray to head the CFPB, and the Senate will vote on his confirmation this week. Having a director in place will allow the Bureau to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices from providers like those that issue payday loans.  

Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Affordable Care Act, launched the Health Care Innovation Challenge, which will award $1 billion in grants to applicants who will implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health and improved care at lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)—particularly those with the greatest health care needs.

The Challenge is a signature initiative of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and promises to catalyze new approaches that support health care delivery transformation. It offers an unprecedented opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs who have been working tirelessly on new care improvement models but have often faced great difficulty bringing them to the patients who need them in today’s reimbursement environment. This Challenge will help us by:

1. Identifying new ways of paying for health care that improve care at reduced cost and can be scaled nationally by CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services.
2. Engaging a wide variety of innovators to help come up with new and promising ideas.  Interested parties of all types are welcome to apply.  Doctors, nurses and other care providers, hospitals, health systems, payers, technology entrepreneurs and other private sector organizations, faith-based organizations, local governments, and public-private partnerships are some of the professionals and organizations we expect to apply.  In addition, certain organizations may apply as conveners to assemble and coordinate groups of participants.  
3. Helping to create jobs. The Challenge gives priority to applicants that identify opportunities for job creation.  By rewarding public sharing and rapid deployment of such ideas, the Challenge will boost our ability to deliver on the promise of health care delivery innovation.  We also believe that by attracting top talent to the health care sector and identifying pathways for innovators to build rewarding careers in this industry, we will both solidify our position as the world’s most competitive healthcare workforce and also help strengthen the foundation for better health for our citizens well into the future.
4.  Encouraging “enhanced infrastructure” to support more effective system-wide function.  In this context, we hope this Innovation Challenge will serve as a call to action for technology and data innovators to team with care innovators to propose solutions that can be implemented with speed and have the capacity to scale.
5.  Promising smart answers fast. We need your “letters of intent” by December 19^th, 2011, with full applications by January 27^th, 2012. Winners will be awarded by March 2012 with three-year grants ranging from $1 million to $30 million.  

Some of the greatest transformations American healthcare has seen have come from sources outside its traditional boundaries — for example, health care has borrowed widely from the automotive, aerospace, and defense industries to innovate.  So please share this post far and wide to innovative thinkers in every corner of American industry – even to those who haven’t yet actively engaged in the health care delivery sector.  There’s never been a better time to innovate in health care – as more and more of the information required to power innovations that safeguard and improve health becomes available and accessible, and as the health care system begins to reward providers for keeping patients healthy and delivering value, not just volume.  Answer the Health Care Innovation Challenge, and play your part in improving the nation’s health care system by proposing new ideas that deliver better health and improved care at lower costs to people with Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP.

Lady Gaga is a source of strength for many young people who feel isolated and scared at their schools.  Today, I had the opportunity to welcome her to the White House, where we discussed ways we could work together to make sure that no child comes under attack, regardless of his or her race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other factor.

One of Lady Gaga’s newest projects is joining together with the MacArthur Foundation and Harvard University to launch the Born This Way Foundation, which will explore ways to help change the culture, the policies, and the curriculum surrounding the safety of our children in school. 

Lady Gaga has described this cause as a personal one – she has said that as a child, she was often picked on for being different. I am deeply moved by the way she has used her story, and her success, to inspire young people, and shine the spotlight on important issues. 

I am proud to be part of an Administration that has taken steps to address bullying. In 2010, the Department of Education made it clear to schools that allowing bullying against LGBT students can violate anti-discrimination statutes.  In 2011, the Department reaffirmed students’ rights to form gay-straight alliances and other similar groups.  Earlier this year, President Obama and the First Lady held a White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. And today the Administration released a new analysis of state bullying laws and policies, summarizing the efforts currently in place to prevent bullying in and out of schools.  The report shows that while states have made recent progress in enacting policies and legislation to address bullying, more must be done.

Members of the audience listen as President Barack Obama delivers remarks at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, Dec. 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

More than a century after Teddy Roosevelt outlined a vision for a "New Nationalism" in a Kansas town called Osawatomie, President Obama visited the same community to talk about what he called a make-or-break moment of the middle class.

He described how the world has undergone an economic transformation unlike any other in our collective history -- and how that change has upended our expectations of social mobility in this country. Where professionals ranging from factory workers to travel agents to accountants once enjoyed the promise of a good job and steady income in exchange for their hard work, today they and a range of people like them must compete with new technology and individuals from around the world. 

The President told the 1,200 people gathered in Osawatomie that there are two ways to respond to these challenges.

Some in Washington, he said, argue that we should let the markets take care of everything -- rolling back regulation and slashing taxes:

Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker.  But here’s the problem:  It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression.  It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

Thankfully, President Obama said, we can choose a different path:

[T]here’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country -- a view that’s truer to our history, a vision that’s been embraced in the past by people of both parties for more than 200 years.
 
It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all of society’s problems. It is a view that says in America we are greater together -- when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share. 

Read the entire speech here.

Ed. Note: This has been cross-posted from the United States Department of Agriculture blog.

In recent years, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as food stamps – has demonstrated an exceptional record in program integrity and stewardship of taxpayer dollars.  The program currently serves as a bridge to success for over 46 million Americans who are at risk of being hungry when they face challenging economic times. More than half of those who rely on the program are children, elderly or the disabled, and many participants are newly unemployed and never thought they would be living in poverty. The program has never been more important and neither has the need to be a good steward of its dollars.  In this vein, President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the Administration’s new Campaign to Cut Waste in government spending in June to eliminate misspent tax dollars and USDA strongly supports this effort.

Today we are reinforcing this commitment, strengthening our resolve to ensure program integrity and working on behalf of American taxpayers to protect the federal investment in SNAP and make sure the program is targeted towards those families who need it the most.   While we recognize that fraud occurs relatively infrequently in SNAP, it has great potential to undermine public confidence in government and jeopardize the ability of the program to serve the millions of struggling families who rely on benefits each month.

Thankfully, the vast majority of SNAP recipients are honest people who spend their benefits to meet basic nutritional needs and to put food on the table. Data shows that illegal activity – such as selling benefits to others for cash – only affects roughly one cent on the dollar. Still, we cannot tolerate even the smallest abuse of taxpayer resources. That’s why we have implemented aggressive strategies to continue to improve SNAP integrity.

On August 31, 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Osawatomie, Kansas and laid out his vision for what he called a "new nationalism."

In the speech, he called for the end of special protections for businesses in government. He declared that anyone who worked hard should be able to provide for themselves and their family, and that no one person was more entitled to special privileges than another. He stood by fair play under the rules of the game ensuring the rules made opportunity available to everyone.

Today President Obama traveled to Osawatomie to talk about some of the very same things. In his speech, the President talked about how this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class.  At stake is the very survival of a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.

Read President Obama's speech here and read President Roosevelt's new nationalism speech below.

If you’ve had a Medicare Advantage or Prescription Drug Plan for a few years, you’ll know that December is the end of Medicare Open Enrollment.  This year, the last day for you to choose new Medicare health or prescription drug coverage for 2012 is December 7, earlier than it’s been in previous years. 

 December 7 is tomorrow.  But you still have until midnight tomorrow if you want to make a change  to your medical or prescription drug coverage.

And as you are reviewing your plan, remember that Medicare is only getting stronger. New data released today shows how millions of seniors have gotten cheaper prescription drugs and free preventive services, all thanks to the President’s health reform law.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap known as the donut hole is starting to close. Through the end of October, 2.65 million people with Medicare have received discounts on brand name drugs in the donut hole.  These discounts have saved seniors and people with disabilities a total of $1.5 billion on prescriptions – averaging about $569 per person.  For State-by-State information on the number of people who are benefiting from this discount in 2011, visit this page.

Over the coming years, the Affordable Care Act will help close the coverage gap completely. Each year from now to 2020, you’ll pay less for brand name and generic drugs in the coverage gap.  And in 2020, the coverage gap will be eliminated and the donut hole will be closed for good.

In addition to cheaper prescription drugs, the Affordable Care Act also made preventive services available to people with Medicare for free. Preventive care helps people stay healthy and live longer lives. Through the end of November nearly 24.2 million people with Medicare have received one or more free preventive services, including Medicare’s new free Annual Wellness Visit.  For State-by-State information on the numbers of people who are utilizing preventive services in 2011, visit this page.