Elizabeth Warren: ‘Location, Location, Location’

The demise of one financial regulator means hot real estate for another.

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Friday announced that it has its sights on a prime location across from the White House in a building complex now occupied by the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Elizabeth Warren, the chief architect of the new consumer watchdog agency, is excited about the bureau’s new digs.

“Location, location, location. That’s the real estate mantra, and the new consumer bureau is following the professional’s lead,” Ms. Warren wrote in a blog post Friday. “We are getting a permanent home, and it’s all about location.”

The Dodd-Frank financial overhaul Congress passed last summer created the consumer bureau but abolished the OTS. The OTS is set to hand off its powers to other financial regulators in July.

“Most of our staff will be gone by then,” said OTS spokesman William Ruberry…

William Daley Discloses $15.4 Million From J.P. Morgan

William Daley, President Barack Obama‘s new chief of staff, made $15.4 million from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in the last three years, and sold dozens of public company stocks before heading to the White House.

In a 43-page financial disclosure released by the White House on Friday, Mr. Daley disclosed his earnings, pension benefits and bonuses while working for J.P. Morgan.

Mr. Daley, who had overseen J.P. Morgan’s Midwestern operations before Mr. Obama tapped him in January to be his chief of staff, also disclosed stock holdings in General Mills Inc., Goodrich Corp., Gilead Sciences Inc., Intel Corp. and a host of other companies. The holdings are in a trust owned by his wife.

The financial disclosure form shows Mr. Daley’s 2010 salary at J.P. Morgan was $675,000. His cash and stock bonus for 2009, paid in 2010, totaled about $3 million. His cash and stock bonus for 2010, paid in 2011, was $4.8 million. His pension plan, paid out in a lump sum, totaled $6.6 million.

Army Wins NASCAR Sponsorship Fight

The Army, the Air Force and the National Guard NASCAR racing teams will ride again this year, after the House voted 241-148 to ditch a measure to ban the Pentagon from sponsoring stock car teams.

The measure was introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum (D., Minn.) as an amendment to the House’s spending bill for the rest of fiscal year 2011, which ends Sept. 30. Ms. McCollum said the spending on NASCAR teams does nothing for military readiness.

The Armys spends $7 million a year on its NASCAR team, and sees it as a useful recruiting tool. The Army picked up 46,000 recruiting leads in 2010 through its racing team, Col. Derik Crotts, director of the Army’s sponsorship, told Washington Wire.

Congress itself directed the Army in 2000 to explore motor sports sponsorships as a recruiting tool. At some point in the last decade, each branch of the military had a partnership with NASCAR racing. The Marines axed their racing team in 2006 because of a smaller ad budget and because there was no way to know if it actually boosted recruiting. Today, only the Army, the National Guard and the Air Force still sponsor race cars.

Will Congress Cut the Capitol Police Force?

Today’s debate over federal spending is expected to get even more personal as lawmakers consider cuts to their own police force.

Conservative Republicans are proposing an 11% across-the-board cut for the legislative branch. Opponents say that will hurt, among other things, the Capitol Police, which guards the Capitol.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R., Calif.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration, circulated a letter to colleagues last night asking them to oppose the amendment being put forward by the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of House conservatives of which he is a member. Today, he issued a tough statement accusing the RSC of jeopardizing “the safety of this institution.”

“Initial estimates indicate that an 11% cut to the U.S. Capitol Police’s budget – already under enormous strain – would result in the number of our sworn officers being reduced by the hundreds,” said Mr. Lungren. “A cut this size would paralyze the force’s ability to protect the Capitol complex.”…

Pawlenty to Address Tea Party Patriots

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is expected to run for president in 2012, will keynote the Tea Party Patriots first-annual policy conference later this month in Phoenix, the group announced today.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Georgia businessman Herman Cain, one of the few Republicans to launch an exploratory committee, will also address tea party activists at the three-day confab.

The group, which is one of the many organized offshoots of an organic movement that sprung up during President Barack Obama’s first two years in the White House, will spend the conference discussing the group’s five organizing themes moving forward: education, politics, the judiciary, the economy and culture.

Most tea party activists cite government spending as their main concern, so the focus on judges and culture shows how some groups under the tea-party umbrella are broadening their agenda to other conservative causes…

Temperature Spikes as House Debates Health Care Funding

Tempers were short on the House floor today as lawmakers considered amendments to defund President Barack Obama’s health overhaul, an incendiary topic the chamber has already debated several times. The House has just gone through two late-night sessions, with another expected tonight.

Democrats complained that Republicans were derisively calling the health law “ObamaCare,” but Republicans taunted them by continuing to call it that. “I respectfully do refer to it as Obama Care,” said Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R., Mont.). “You would think he would want his name attached to his signature legislation.”

Then the two sides engaged in a debate in whether an amendment by Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) to defund the health overhaul was appropriate. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) said it was “legislating,” rather than altering the current bill.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) jumped up to sarcastically take issue with Ms. DeLauro’s objection on the grounds that the new GOP majority has shown it cannot legislate…

Wisconsin Protest Becomes Proxy Fight for Washington

The budget battle in Wisconsin is becoming a proxy fight for party leaders in Washington.

In an interview Wednesday, President Barack Obama said Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to limit collective bargaining for state employees seems to be “an assault on unions.”

On Friday, Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) weighed in with a short post on his Facebook page, saying the president “attacked” the Wisconsin governor for attempting to rein in state spending and accused Mr. Obama of using the Democratic National Committee “to spread disinformation.”

“If the president truly wants an ‘adult conversation’ about our fiscal challenges, shouting down reform-minded leaders is a bad way to start,” Mr. Boehner said. “Call off the attacks and lead, Mr. President.”…

Labor Unions Cheer on Wis. Protesters

As thousands of public employees and union activists gathered at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., for a third day of protests Thursday, national labor leaders cheered them on and took jabs at Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, who tends keeps a low profile, said in a 400-word statement that he found the protests “inspiring.”

“It’s inspiring to see middle-class workers coming together to say they’ve had enough of this one-sided class war,” Mr. Hoffa said, calling Mr. Walker’s proposal a “vindictive attack on people he views as his political enemies.”

Mr. Hoffa also warned of major jobs losses, referring to a study by the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future that showed the Walker budget proposal leading to a loss of $1.1 billion in economic activity for the state along with 9,000 private sector jobs.

Today’s Wisconsin protests from public-employee union members came as Democratic state lawmakers were no-shows for a vote on the budget proposal. By fleeing the capital, the Democrats halted a vote on the bill, which would strip Wisconsin public employees of most collective-bargaining rights…

A Big Name for Federal Building in Midland, Texas

Here’s a mouthful.

“The George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush United States Courthouse and George Mahon Federal Building” would be the new name of the federal building in Midland, Texas, under a a bill that passed the House Transportation Committee this week.

The measure was offered by Rep. Mike Conaway, a Republican who represents Midland, and the Congressional Budget Office figures it will have little impact on the federal budget.

The bill would make the Midland building one of the first things in the U.S. to be named after George W Bush. (The elder Mr. Bush has plenty of honors, including an airport.) It joins a George W. Bush Highway in McGregor, Texas, the George W. Bush Little League Leadership Training Center in Waco and the George W. Bush Elementary School in Stockton, Calif. And in Georgia – the country, that is – there’s another George W. Bush Highway.

The Dallas Morning News reported that the shared honor comes about because the federal building is currently named for George Mahon, a Democratic congressman who represented the Midland district for 22 consecutive terms, including eight as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

The younger Bush won the Republican nomination to succeed Mr. Mahon, but lost in the general election. Mr. Mahon, who retired in 1978, died in 1985.

NLRB Defunding Fails, But Agency Remains GOP Target

A House Republican-led effort to defund the National Labor Relations Board failed Thursday, but the agency remains a target for spending cuts that would slash its annual budget by $50 million, or nearly one-fifth.

The amendment to defund the agency failed during consideration of a broader measure to fund the federal government through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The broader measure aims to cut spending by $61 billion, and includes the $50 million reduction to the NLRB. The bill is expected to pass late Thursday or early Friday morning.

NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman said Thursday that the cuts would amount to 18% of the agency’s annual budget, requiring it to furlough all staff members for 55 days.

“We don’t administer programs so there are none to cut. We’re an adjudicatory agency, so all we could really cut is salaries,” Ms. Liebman said. “It would certainly force us to severely curtail all of our operations,” including investigating charges of unfair labor practices, conducting union elections and trying cases, she said.

The effort to defund the NLRB was led by House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price (R., Ga.), who said that cutting the agency’s funding “can save taxpayer dollars and help protect American job creators from an out-of-control agency.” Only Republicans voted for the measure to defund the agency, which was defeated 250-176, with 60 Republicans joining 190 Democrats in opposition…