Of course, not every kid has the same risk of becoming a victim. A large number of those gun deaths occur in poor neighborhoods.
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A Fighting Chance
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works―and really doesn't―in A Fighting ChanceAs a child in small-town Oklah
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The banking industry bought everything; they even bought their own facts. The industry commissioned three different studies, each of which was touted as independent. Each explained the urgent need to change the law—exactly the way the banking industry wanted it changed. One particularly damaging res…
This shouldn’t be a my-party-your-party exercise. We should work together with one nonpartisan staff.
Families are going broke because they buy too much stuff!
This crisis didn’t have to happen. America had a boom-and-bust cycle from the 1790s to the 1930s, with a financial panic every ten to fifteen years. But we figured out how to fix it. Coming out of the Great Depression, the country put tough rules in place that gave us fifty years without a financial…
I loved my mother. I wanted her to smile, to believe that I was doing the right thing. But that wasn’t going to happen. So I ducked my head and kept on going.
The Founding Fathers had called for bankruptcy protection in the Constitution itself, and surely even the banking lobby wouldn’t pick a fight with them.
Medical problems, job losses, and family breakups had laid these families low. Most had hung on and tried to repay long past any reasonable chance of doing so. As I saw it, the families in bankruptcy were mostly good people caught in a bad situation.
Rich Cordray did. Rich was fearless, and he led by example. Among other things, he investigated Capital One for misleading customers about the costs of free add-ons to their credit cards—free services that actually cost customers a total of $140 million. (He ultimately forced Capital One to send the…
They barely have time to fend off calls from angry creditors, let alone write letters to Congress. And most are profoundly, desperately ashamed of their situation. For many, the decision to file for bankruptcy proves to be the darkest secret of their entire lives. Politically speaking, they are almo…
What kind of people are we? What are our shared values? Many congressional Republicans think it’s fine to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to giant oil companies and corporations that park their money overseas, even as medical research budgets are hit by another round of cuts and care centers…
It’s a story about what’s worth fighting for, and how sometimes, even when we fight against very powerful opponents, we can win.
America’s middle class was under attack. The nation’s broad prosperity had been forged by people like my parents—people who knew hardship and conflict and who kept on fighting, determined to pass on something better to their children. But the strength of the middle class was not unlimited. I felt as…
There were a million things we needed to figure out—and the congressman thought the most important thing we needed to do was slice up the operating budget so each political party was assured its fair share? Welcome to Washington.
America’s middle class is under attack. Worse, it’s not under attack by some unstoppable force of nature. It’s in trouble because the game is deliberately rigged.
The bankruptcy wars changed me forever. Even before this grinding battle, I had begun to understand the terrible squeeze on the middle class. But it was this fight that showed me how badly the playing field was tilted and taught me that the squeeze wasn’t accidental.
I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People—powerful people—listen to what they have to say. But insiders also unde…
By late 2008, one out of every five mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth. The banks called in the loans, and the foreclosure notices piled up.
The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got i…
Start simple. Fix something people can see.