The reckless behavior of big banks on Wall Street, credit card companies and mortgage lenders caused a financial crisis that cost Americans millions of lost jobs, billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts and trillions of lost retirement savings.

It’s outrageous that after taking billions of our tax dollars in bailout money, the big banks are back to business as usual, taking billions in profits and spending hundreds of millions to pay lobbyists to fight against reforms that would protect us from their abuses in the future. We need financial reform that will hold corporations, big banks and individuals accountable, crack down on reckless behavior on Wall Street, rein in excessive bonuses and pay for executives, protect consumers from the exorbitant fees and deceptive practices of credit card companies, increase stability for small businesses, and prevent predatory lenders and borrowers from entering into loans they know cannot be paid back.

By demanding accountability from those who helped cause the financial crisis, we can make financial dealings safer and more transparent for American consumers, investors and small-businesspeople who play by the rules, and prevent future bailouts and job losses. Most importantly, we can lay the foundation for a financial system that promotes stability and long-term economic growth, rather than greed and short-term profits.

Thankfully, opponents of reform do not have an ally in U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who is using his important seat on the Senate Banking Committee to push for the creation of a consumer financial-protection agency and strong derivatives reform.

Derivatives are unregulated investments whose value derives from an underlying asset. They now represent literally hundreds of trillions of dollars in investment activity, or 10 times as much as investment in stocks. Credit default swaps, one form of derivatives, were responsible for the collapse of the insurance giant AIG, which sold many such swaps that guaranteed to pay out insurance to many different investors if their investments in mortgages went bad, and then had to be bailed out to the tune of $134 billion when all of the mortgages did go bad.

Massive speculation in the derivatives market for commodities has contributed to the sharply fluctuating prices of oil and grains – making life very difficult for small producers like farmers and oil-heat dealers, and also contributing to price increases for all consumers.

The biggest financial institutions are fighting against the idea of requiring all derivatives to go through a clearinghouse to make sure the buyers and sellers really have the necessary capital for doing a particular trade, and alternately are lobbying to be able to run those clearinghouses if they are established. Most significantly, the banks are fighting against a requirement that derivatives be traded on an exchange.

In the stock exchange a buyer knows what price all the other buyers are paying. But in the derivatives market, the buyer – which can include pension funds and other institutional investors, as well as farmers, oil-heat dealers and others who want to make sure they can offer their customers a fixed price or get a fixed price for their product – has no ability to know whether they are getting a better or worse deal than everyone else. All of the information – and all of the power – rests with the derivatives dealers, who are mostly the very largest banks. Exchange trading will mean that the big banks no longer have a lock on all information about derivatives.

Thus the most effective means of ensuring that the derivatives markets operate fairly is reform that is as comprehensive as possible, with no loopholes and strong requirements for clearing and exchange trading of all derivatives. It is the only way that we will not leave ourselves vulnerable to yet another bailout.

It is important that Rhode Islanders encourage Sen. Reed to push for the strongest possible derivatives reform. There is no doubt that he, like every other member of Congress on a committee with oversight of the financial industry, is hearing quite a bit from the country’s largest banks.

Peter Asen is the executive director of Ocean State Action.

Daniel Bass, organizer from Ocean State Action, said:

“With it being over a year of the debate, and the American economy suffering, more people losing healthcare every day, we just need action right now.”

PROVIDENCE - Twelve years ago, Pawtucket resident Ed Benson's wife, Sue, went into the hospital for a simple one-hour operation to have non-cancerous fibroids removed from her uterus.

Once the surgery began, however, the doctor discovered ovarian cancer and called for additional surgeons. The surgery stretched to six hours but was successful and the doctor prescribed four to five days of hospital recuperation for what turned out to be a major procedure.

Two days later, Benson, who was a University of Connecticut profressor at the time, got a call from his wife saying, "get down here now, I've been kicked out" of the hospital.

"I arrived on the ward to hear Sue's primary care doctor pleading with, admonishing and even yelling at an insurance executive to allow her to stay in the hospital," Benson told a protest rally Wednesday called to urge Congress to pass legislation for jobs and health care. "But all of this was to no avail."

All this happened, Benson said, despite having what he called "excellent coverage."

PROVIDENCE—About 100 people rallied in downtown Providence Wednesday for health and jobs.

They called on Congress to pass health-care reform and a jobs bill that would provide billions in funding to help people get back to work.

Click here to watch full report.

Advocates for health care, fair wages and union rights gathered Wednesday afternoon to demand that Congress create jobs and to pass a sensible health insurance plan.

Their message to the Rhode Island delegation was not a new one, but it was impassioned: "No Excuses. No more politics. Congress must act to create jobs and to pass strong health-care reform."

Speakers at the Kennedy Plaza rally, which drew about 100 people, also emphasized the need to protect workers' rights and address global warming.

"We need Congress to pass a strong jobs-creation bill that will put Rhode Islanders and people across the country back to work," said Daniel Bass, organizer at the advocacy coalition Ocean State Action.

Participants urged Washington to recognize the stress that joblessness and a lack of affordable health care puts on working people who are just trying to stay afloat.

As one sign in the crowd put it: "A job is a right."

Click here to read full article.

Ocean State Action organizer Daniel Bass talks about the need for Congress to pass strong jobs creation legislation.

Click here to watch the report.

The future of Rhode Island and our communities is directly tied to how we deal with the economic downturn and the severe budget shortfalls we seem to face every year. We must be future-oriented when working to solve our budget problems to pave the path to achieve economic success and get Rhode Islanders back to work.

Over the last few years, we have seen slash-and-burn policies led by Governor Carcieri that have cut funding for the public structures we need to build a strong economy. But we can do better.

Government can and must support the public structures that we all depend on. This means funding our roads, our schools, our hospitals, and our public transit system. In addition, we need to maintain essential programs such as disability and mental health services, elder care, and affordable child care.

The practical solution to fixing Rhode Island's budgetary problems is to fix our upside-down tax structure to make it more balanced. Our tax system asks more of those with the least financial resources, and asks less of those who have more. If that doesn't sound fair, it's because it isn't!

According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, Rhode Islanders earning less than $51,000 a year (a majority of us) pay on average between 10.0 percent and 11.9 percent of our income in state and local taxes (property, income, sales and excise). But Rhode Islanders with incomes above $419,000 pay only half that -- an average of just 5.6 percent. For every dollar you make, about a dime goes to the state or city -- while the person who makes far more is just paying a nickel.

Ocean State Action leads the Campaign for Rhode Island's Priorities, a coalition fighting to fix our upside-down tax structure by moving away from our over-reliance on the property tax (which also increases rents) towards relying on taxes that are based more on people's ability to pay. The Campaign is advocating for practical solutions to achieve this goal, like repeal of the alternative flat tax, which is a massive income tax break to less than one percent of Rhode Island's highest earners.

As families across the country continue to struggle with unemployment rates above 10%, mortgages that cost more than the homes they pay for are worth, and the anxiety of lost retirement and college savings, the biggest banks and Wall Street firms have been announcing bonus and compensation pools rivaling record breaking 2007 levels. The 6 largest firms alone – Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley – whose greed and recklessness did so much to cause the financial crisis – have planned to pay out between $140 and $150 billion. JP Morgan, for example, announced on January 15th that it is setting aside $26.9 billion in compensation this year. On a per employee basis that is up 38 percent from 2008 and 20 percent from the 2007 pre-crisis numbers. Citigroup will pay $24.9 billion.

This reveals more than simply hubris. It shows that Wall Street believes that nothing has changed. The terrible truth is that so far, thanks to their own continued success in lobbying for their narrow interests, even as they have benefited from trillions in public support, they are right. As it stands now, they are free to continue the heads they win, tails we lose gouging and gambling that brought on the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And free to pay their senior executives obscene sums to continue in that direction.

There is a way to change this. President Obama is calling for financial reform, and last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that took steps in the right direction. But the financial industry is opposing real change every step of the way. They weakened the House bill in key areas, for example undermining rules to bring the trading of derivatives – key sources of the financial meltdown (and of billions of dollars in profits for the very largest Wall Street banks) – out into the open. The financial services industry spent $344 million on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2009, and they have more than 1,500 lobbyists registered to protect their interests.

Now it’s the U.S. Senate’s turn to act, and the industry is redoubling their efforts to prevent or fatally water down the change we need. Because Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed has a key position on the Senate Banking Committee, he can play a major role in ensuring that the Senate passes strong reform that truly protects consumers and changes the rules of the game for the industry. Senator Reed has made very strong statements in support of a bank tax and a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but to pass meaningful reform, he will also have to convince some of his colleagues – who seem less inclined to challenge the banks – to take a strong stand.

We need financial reform to rein in the greedy and reckless behavior of big banks on Wall Street that cost millions of jobs, and to crack down on abuses committed by credit card companies and the mortgage lending industry. These reforms will strengthen our financial system and will help to prevent another financial crisis.

The banks were rescued in order to restore the health to the financial system. Sadly, the financial system remains in trouble with record banks failures and a continuing dearth of lending, while the bailed out big banks shower themselves with subsidy-enriched bonuses and fund an army of lobbyists to work against the interests of the American public.

People are angry – and rightly so – about these outsize bonuses, and about the impunity and lack of accountability they represent in the wake of the financial crisis and the bailout of the biggest banks.

Rhode Islanders who want Senator Reed to stand with them and hold the financial industry accountable should call his office at 401-943-3100 and let him know. There is no doubt they are hearing quite a bit from the banks.

Read column here.

Rhode Island's fiscal challenges are expected this evening to dominate Governor Carcieri's final State of the State address.

Tonight's speech comes amidst grim economic times in the Ocean State, including an unemployment rate just shy of 13 percent. The governor's office says Carcieri plans to address these daunting economic challenges. . .

The governor's proposals are also under fire from people like Dan Bass, an activist with the liberal advocacy group Ocean State Action.

"His proposals are making our tax system more upside-down," Bass said. "We're already over-reliant on the property tax, which is squeezing middle class families the most. Property taxes were raised in all 39 municipalities last year, and we need honest leadership right now that's going to address that."

Read or listen to the entire report here.