What Congress Should Learn from OWS

Occupy Wall Street has taken off. The movement is quickly spreading across the world, with new Occupy movement surfacing seemingly daily. The movement is not without its critics, who point to the vast number of messages coming out of the protests as a sign the movement does not have a singular voice.

While there may be many messages out there from the participants, however, it is not hard to find some central themes from the movement. Not just Wall Street needs to be listening. Congress can and should learn a lot from the Occupy movement, using the protests as a motivation to end our partisan gridlock and do what is best for the country.

Neither Congress nor Wall Street is innocent when it comes to causes of the current crisis, and because of this, neither has been good at finding solutions. The OWS movement has come clear asks, listed on their website as a series of complaints against the industry.

Here are a couple that Congress should pay particular attention to: stop illegal foreclosures; no more bank bailouts; and create jobs.

All of these have direct links to actions that Congress can take. People are angry that despite the robo-signing scandal, big banks are still trying to foreclose on homes with fraudulent paperwork and/or without being able to produce the note. Congress can pass legislation making this illegal, which would force banks to clean up their paperwork. The robo-signing scandal has banks like Bank of America facing lawsuits that could cripple them.

This leads to another ask of the movement, no more bank bailouts. Congress should listen, stop fighting the provisions in the Dodd/Frank Act that stop too big to fail, and provide a path to winding a bank down instead of bailing banks out.

The biggest grievance of the movement and every other American is creating jobs. Neither side can agree on how to create jobs, but everyone in Congress should take the growing anger as a sign to put aside partisanship and get some legislation passed. Getting people back to work is the single most important demand. Jobs can help homeowners pay their mortgage and avoid foreclosure, help recent grads pay their student loans, can get people spending money to boost the economy, and can create a bigger tax base to generate more tax revenue.

To me, the message is pretty clear: People are clearly angry by the direction of this country. Even though the brunt of the anger is being directed at Wall Street, Congress is not shielded. The messages should not only be heard by the big banks on Wall Street, but also through the halls of Congress. There are specific asks that Congress can act on, and they should listen carefully to the occupiers. Both Congress and OWS are made up of varying people with different mindsets, yet OWS protesters have managed to find a way to work together.

Here is to hoping that Congress is not only listening, but learning from OWS on how to work together, so they can end the gridlock and do what is best for the country.

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