May 2011 Newsletter

Washington Update

This month, Sen. Levin praised our military and intelligence services, released a bipartisan report on the causes of the financial crisis, spoke out for balanced debt reduction and welcomed grants that will help Michigan communities and small businesses.

We have struck a blow against terror

Pictured: Sen. Levin meets with U.S. troops on his most recent trip to the Middle East.

At 10 o’clock on a Sunday night I was in the terminal at Detroit Airport. I had gone through the usual airport security drills – shoes off, liquids in plastic bags, and all the other inconveniences designed to keep us safe. And it was in December 2009 that a would-be terrorist sought to bomb an airliner as it landed in Detroit.

So I was surrounded by reminders large and small of how the threat of terrorism has affected our lives when Defense Secretary Gates called me with the momentous news that our forces had succeeded in raiding a compound in Pakistan and killing Osama bin Laden.

Read Sen. Levin’s Senate floor statement thanking our troops

Bipartisan report reveals conflicts of interest at heart of Wall Street crisis

Sen. Levin and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma release the financial crisis report.

A few days ago, I joined with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to release a bipartisan report on the causes of the financial crisis that pushed us into the recession that continues to afflict families in Michigan and across the country.

The report is the product of more than two years of work by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair. Last year, our subcommittee held four hearings on what we uncovered, and the 600-page report expands on what we learned from those hearings, hundreds of witness interviews and millions of pages of documents.

The financial crisis was a man-made economic assault, the product of reckless risk-taking and rampant conflict of interest on the part of some big banks, mortgage companies and credit rating agencies. The recession that followed the crisis devastated Michigan's economy; it cost more than 400,000 Michigan jobs; it cost thousands of Michiganians their homes; and it nearly decimated our domestic auto industry. That's why it's so important for Michigan and the country that we get a clear picture of the causes of the crisis, to try to make sure it never happens again.

Read the press release announcing the report