In March, @RepSpanberger and I urged a big increase in the budget of a little known agency -- the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN). Yesterday, the Biden administration agreed and formally asked Congress for a 50% boost!
Here's why this matters.
Last year, we enacted a bill I'd been championing for years to ban the anonymous shell companies foreign kleptocrats and corrupt Americans use to hide their money. The bill requires FINCEN to maintain a registry of the true owners of all companies based in the US.
More than half of Russia's wealth has been stashed abroad, including in the U.S., in fake companies and anonymous real estate. Tracking and cracking down on that corruption, part of FINCEN's mission, is key to countering dictators like Putin & Xi Xinping. nytimes.com/news-event/she…
FINCEN also helps us stop unlawful tax evasion by corporations and wealthy Americans. Our government loses at least $90 billion in revenue a year from offshore tax evasion, something the Biden administration is promising a big effort to tackle. washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020…
I don't usually read Mansion Global magazine, but when I do, I love seeing stories complaining that it's now harder to "hide who owns a property," because of a law I helped to pass! mansionglobal.com/articles/buyin…
But to enforce these laws, and protect the world's largest financial system, FINCEN has just 300 employees, less than the financial intelligence units of Australia and Canada. We're now on our way to changing that! foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/01/fin…
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I walked through the Capitol building today with @RepDeanPhillips to thank the Capitol Police officers who faced down the mob on Wednesday with too little support.
I also just want to be in the Capitol as much as possible. It feels like holding sacred ground.
Here are some images from the Capitol. Officer Sicknick's bicycle. A broken window. The entry to the Speaker's lobby where shots were fired. Some words of wisdom.
One officer who is also an Army National Guardsman told us he was with his unit this weekend, and had to argue with some of his fellow Guardsmen who insisted the assault on the Capitol was fake, or staged. I'm increasingly worried about this problem in the ranks.
You could say this was a close election, except that Biden will have won the popular vote by more than 5 million votes, plus victories in states few thought were truly winnable. This election will be remembered as a powerful statement.
You could say that we're dangerously divided, and that's partly true, except that this election was won by a coalition of decent Democrats and McCain/Romney/Bush Republicans who put aside differences on policy for the sake of the country.
You could say that our democracy is fraying, except that civic participation is at an all time high, and a leader who tried to subvert our democratic institutions was just beaten by entirely peaceful, democratic means, thanks to free elections, a free press, and the rule of law.
If you've seen extra vitriol on my social media, here's why: the "Q" persona dropped a statement targeting me, citing the discredited NRCC (GOP SuperPAC) attacks on me & my resolution condemning QAnon.
In my first debate with Tom Kean, I warned him that he was playing with a dark and dangerous current in our politics with these vile attacks. He and the NRCC have refused calls from fact checkers, religious leaders, even local Republicans, to disavow them.
Now QAnon, an anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering cult that the FBI views as a potential terrorist threat, is directly amplifying the NRCC's press releases to its millions of online followers.
I've been puzzling over why my opponent thinks this is a good argument (disparaging my refusal to accept corporate contributions to my campaign). All I can come up with is that he doesn't understand how political corruption in America works.
Let me explain.
First, it's true that both Senator Kean and I have received campaign contributions from sitting members of Congress who support us. And some of those members (including all backing him) accept corporate PAC checks.
But in those cases, neither Senator Kean nor I have any reason to feel indebted to a corporation that at some point made a campaign contribution to someone else, who then in turn chose to back us. We never solicited it from a corporation, and they never directed it to us.
Here's a link to my first debate with Senator Kean. I obviously have some views about how it went. But I really hope everyone will watch and judge for themselves. via @YouTube
The main point I tried to get across is that our problem in Washington is not one bad person, but all the weak people who let him get away with what he says and does.
If you want to represent our district, you've got to take a stand, and say what's right and wrong.
On the issues, it was clear who stands for what NJ values:
I'm for the ACA; Kean is against it. I'm for strong gun laws; he got an A grade from the NRA. I'm delivering $ for Gateway; last night he continued to defend Chris Christie's disastrous decision to cancel the ARC Tunnel.
I've spoken to dozens of school superintendents and principals in the last few weeks.
My takeaway is that if we truly cared about our kids and opening school safely, we'd shut down the country, all of it this time, for 3 weeks and get this over with. npr.org/sections/coron…
Of course that could only happen with bipartisan buy-in, including from the president, and that won't happen. So we're stuck with Plan B: prolonging the pain and saddling our educators and parents with impossible choices.
What, then, should be done?
My main priority as a member of Congress has been to fight for relief for our state & local governments, so our schools have the resources to do the impossible, whether learning is remote or in person.
This is the key issue in our negotiations with the president right now.