Encourages More Illinois Residents, Employers To Participate By Visiting PutIllinoistoWork.Illinois.gov

PEORIA – May 15, 2010. Governor Pat Quinn today visited the Peoria YWCA to announce that 577 employers across the state have agreed to hire more than 3,886 workers through the Put Illinois to Work (PIW) employment program.  Peoria’s YWCA has signed on to participate in the anti-poverty program that is expected to create more than 15,000 jobs statewide.

“Put Illinois to Work will create more than 15,000 good-paying jobs in our state,” said Governor Quinn. “I applaud the hundreds of Illinois employers that have signed on to this program, and I encourage businesses and residents across the state to visit PutIllinoistoWork.Illinois.gov and fill out an application.”

Through Put Illinois to Work, eligible Illinois residents will be placed in subsidized employment positions with participating worksites for up to six months, learning valuable skills and supporting their families. The program is expected to create more than 15,000 jobs statewide and to help stimulate Illinois’ ailing economy. Put Illinois to Work will develop a healthy state workforce by providing meaningful work experiences for participants.

Private, public and non-profit businesses are encouraged to participate in Put Illinois to Work. Eligible participants are matched to subsidized employment opportunities with these worksites. The hope is that when the program concludes, many employers will permanently hire the workers they trained.

Put Illinois to Work is a collaborative effort of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), and Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS). Funding is provided through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF), which was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Eligible worksites and participants must meet program criteria and agree to adhere to specific programmatic requirements. Participants must be age 18-21, or 18 and older and the parent (custodial or non-custodial) of a minor child. All participants must have a household income below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level ($2,428 per month for a family of two) and be legally present and authorized to work.

The Peoria YWCA serves around 150 children each day in their child care program and 100 children in health promotions activities. They house an average of 50 children each night either in the emergency shelter, transitional housing or permanent supportive housing. The YWCA also provides services to more than 10,000 different individuals annually and provides space to a local high school for their women’s sports and junior varsity athletic programs.

For eligibility criteria and additional information on Put Illinois to Work, visit PutIllinoistoWork.Illinois.gov.

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It’s no wonder public opinion towards the federal government is sinking to historic lows. Consider the disingenuous public relations strategy undertaken by General Motors (GM) and the Treasury Department. With great fanfare, the U.S. automaker boasted that it was paying back billions of tax dollars to Uncle Sam thanks to an upswing in car sales.

Upon closer review, however, the repayment announcement is overshadowed by the fact that the Treasury Department allowed GM to dip into another taxpayer-financed pot of money to repay $7 billion of its taxpayer-backed government loan.

It’s obvious why the car company and Treasury Department would be eager to claim tax dollars were being paid back “in full” and earlier than scheduled.  However, it’s regrettable the very public announcement essentially misled the American public by glossing over very relevant details.

Taxpayers still own 61 percent (paid for with $41 billion tax dollars) of General Motors’ common stock. It’s highly likely the taxpaying public won’t rejoice in an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It says taxpayers stand to lose around $30 billion on the General Motors bailout when it’s all said and done.

The idea that Washington can solve every problem with a government program is rooted in a misguided borrow-and-spend mentality.

Holding the federal government accountable, tracking tax dollars and keeping the people’s business open and accessible to public scrutiny are central to my congressional oversight.  As Chairman or Ranking Member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, I’ve led efforts to shut down offshore corporate tax loopholes; investigate the eligibility and compliance of non-profit organizations relative to their tax-exempt status; disclose financial relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and researchers who provide expertise that influences health decisions; and, most recently, scrutinize the trillions of tax dollars that Washington has pumped into the private sector.

As Congress debates financial regulatory reform, I worked to advance bipartisan legislation that would bring more transparency and accountability to the Federal Reserve. The Fed controls the supply of money in the U.S. economy. Last year the Federal Reserve took unprecedented action to stabilize banks at risk of failing. The American public has a right to know who has taken the money and how it has been spent. Allowing the independent investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, to audit the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program would give lawmakers and taxpayers another tool to protect tax dollars.  I also cosponsored legislation to reform the way credit-rating agency evaluations are handled in order to help bring about the independent assessment investors deserve.  It’s a matter of market integrity.

In these times of economic uncertainty, the American public is facing an even bigger burden of public debt. Washington is marching towards an all-time-high spending benchmark, reaching 25 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Now, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, said health care reform will cost $115 billion more than projected.  That makes the deficit reduction that was promised impossible.  Despite the President’s promise that health care reform would not add one dime to the deficit, when costs for Social Security and the new long-term care CLASS Act program in the bill are factored in, the real result is that the bill signed into law adds $90 billion to the deficit.

A bigger government has a bigger appetite for more and more taxes. Without a major shift, the current path of reckless deficit spending and unsustainable public entitlements will keep future generations of Americans working longer than ever before just to fulfill their tax obligations let alone maintain a certain standard of living.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Senator seeks distance between regulators and industry

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley has filed an amendment to the Senate financial regulation bill to create a new registration requirement for certain employees at all major financial regulatory agencies who leave the agency.  The amendment would also establish a two-year ban on these former employees from representing clients before their former employer.  The ban is similar to revolving door ban the Senate places on its own members and would apply to employees that are paid a salary that is statutorily authorized above the standard government pay scale.

“The revolving door is a real issue, and we’ve seen situations where someone is a high-level government official one day and representing a major player in the financial world before their former agency just days later, without any public disclosure whatsoever,” Grassley said.  “In addition to making things transparent, my amendment also would create a reasonable waiting period that’s similar to those applied to members of Congress, congressional employees, cabinet level officers and other high ranking employees in the executive branch.”

The agencies impacted by this amendment include the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Farm Credit Administration, National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Commodities Future Trading Commission.  Congress has exempted certain employees at these agencies from the government pay scale, and the agencies are empowered to increase pay.  Annual salaries exceed $200,000, in some instances.

Grassley has co-sponsored a number of amendments to the financial regulation bill which focus on greater transparency and accountability for both regulators and financial institutions, including audit authority over the Federal Reserve.

Last week, Grassley won passage of an amendment to provide whistleblower protections to employees of credit-rating agencies.  “People who know of wrong-doing and speak up should be able to do so without fear of retaliation.  These protections are similar to those I won for corporate employees after the Enron scandal,” he said.  “The credit-rating agencies contributed to the financial crisis of 2008.  They were too cozy with the industry that they were supposed to be assessing in an independent and credible way.”  Separately, Grassley has cosponsored an amendment offered by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota that would create a firewall so that a credit-rating agency can be selected independent of an issuer.  This amendment goes after conflicts of interest between rating agencies and issuers.

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