Our Blog

Louisa Terrell, before becoming Biden’s director of legislative affairs, spent two years at Facebook at a key time.

Staring down the barrel of a Republican-controlled House in 2023, Democrats are juggling a litany of legislative priorities during the current lame-duck session. In addition to Congress’s looming obligation to fund an omnibus spending bill to fund the government, the pressure is on to enshrine same-sex marriage rights into law, bolster federal electoral procedures, add protections for pregnant women on the job, overhaul the farmworker visa program, prevent future Schedules F, and much more.

Biden Stands To Harm Workers And The Democratic Party’s Future

It’s been a bad few weeks for the sort of opinionated center-left pundit who prides themselves on data-driven, hyper-quantitative approaches to solving society’s intractable problems.

Both EA and popularism appeal to a desire for mathematical rigor and objective calculation, whether it’s calculating lives-saved-per-dollar or playing probabilities in politics.Both EA and popularism appeal to a desire for mathematical rigor and objective calculation, whether it’s calculating lives-saved-per-dollar or playing probabilities in politics.

The FTX disaster should be all the impetus needed to kill off any new crypto industry–approved legislation. Instead, we need Congress to provide material support for financial regulators in the form of increased appropriations to guard against the next collapse. Much of the crypto industry is already subject to laws—the very ones that the SEC seeks to enforce and that the crypto industry broadly (not just Sam Bankman-Fried) seeks to evade by reducing the SEC’s jurisdiction ex post facto. Both the CFTC and SEC urgently need funds to fulfill their mandates. Crypto stretches these needs even further, but the need has existed for years. For decades, financial crimes have too often gone unpunished. This wasn’t for a lack of rules, but a lack of will, funds, and people willing to enforce them. Crypto doesn’t need special treatment, it needs to face the music.

Last November, President Biden signed the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, better known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The bill provides $1.2 trillion for infrastructure renovations nationwide, with $91 billion earmarked for various public transportation programs. At the time, Biden announced Mitch Landrieu would be the White House’s Senior Advisor and Infrastructure Coordinator in charge of implementing the landmark legislation, more colloquially known as the “Infrastructure Czar.” Landrieu now oversees a $1.2 trillion dollar bill, so he must be in constant communication with the administrators of key agencies to ensure it’s money well spent … right?

At a critical juncture such as this where the industry seeks kid-glove treatment from regulators, backgrounds such as Harris’s should be disqualifying.

The White House does not need to hire someone to get a banker’s perspective on inflation.