Last week, we learned that the swift action by the President and Congress to pass an economic recovery package earlier this year helped stave off a global economic recession, put our economy back on the path of growth, and helped save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

SEIU was a major proponent of the economic recovery package and we believe we need to continue to make progress on a number of other economic initiatives to build long-term sustainable economic growth--these include passing meaningful financial reform, investing in green jobs, using public pension funds to build a 21st century infrastructure, and creating a new retirement system to protect our future.

Passing Meaningful Financial Reform
Anna Burger writes on New Deal 2.0 about the need to fundamentally change the way we value wealth and work in our country and act now on meaningful reforms to protect our families from future economic crises.

To build long-term economic progress we must:

• Create a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency to serve as a watchdog against predatory and reckless banking products;
• Crackdown on out of control executive pay that rewards short term risks over long term results;
• End too big to fail once and for all by separating commercial banking from investment banking and raising capital requirements back to levels that promote safe and sound banks;
• Empower shareholders to act on executive pay and break the excessive power of executive-controlled boards;
• Force banks to expand lending to small businesses and state and local governments to create jobs and save critical services;
• Demand banks stop foreclosures and help families keep their homes;
• Reregulate the shadow financial markets--including derivatives, hedge funds and private equity; and
• Investigate, and if necessary prosecute, the big banks and Wall Street for crashing our economy.

In case you missed it--more than 5,000 Americans from 20 states--converged on the American Bankers Association convention in Chicago to demand banks stop fighting reforms that would help protect our families from future crises. It was the beginning of a national movement to hold banks and Wall Street accountable for their reckless behavior.

Investing in Green Jobs
During the first meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Board, Anna Burger shared her perspective on how business, labor and government can work together towards creating a low-carbon, green economy and a movement into sustainable good, green jobs--citing the work SEIU and other Change to Win unions are already doing on the community and national level to lead the way on green initiatives.

Ken Lewis is on his way out at Bank of America. But not without one more parting gift from all of us.

Despite helping to drive us into one of the worst financial meltdowns in history, it's been revealed that Bank of America plans to send Ken Lewis out the door with a $53.3 million pension on top of the hundreds of millions he's already made during his failed tenure as CEO.

We're the ones paying billions in tax dollars to bail out Bank of America for the mistakes Ken Lewis made. We shouldn't let him take one more penny of our hard-earned money.

The Obama administration has appointed a 'pay czar,' Kenneth Feinberg, to make sure our tax dollars aren't being used to pay outrageous earnings to bank CEOs.

Will you tell the pay czar to stop payment on the Ken Lewis bailout? http://seiu.org/stoppayment

SEIU Secretary Treasurer Anna Burger will be delivering a letter to Mr. Feinberg, asking him to withhold Lewis' absurd compensation until Bank of America agrees to stop hurting our communities with reckless financial practices. But we want you, as a taxpayer, to sign on to the letter before we deliver it to Mr. Feinberg: http://seiu.org/stoppayment

The changes we're asking for are simple - and they're necessary to stop greedy banks from driving us toward another financial meltdown. Help make sure Ken Lewis doesn't get another dime of our money until Bank of America cleans up its act.

Sign on to Anna Burger's letter at http://seiu.org/stoppayment

P.S. It's not just Ken Lewis. CEOs at all the major banks are continuing to rake in millions, but they've done nothing to fix the problems that got us into this mess. Help us put them all on notice by signing the letter to pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

"When Lehman Brothers fell, they took not just the rest of Wall Street, but all of Main Street, down with them. Yet, one year later, the greedy CEOs who caused the collapse are unremorseful, unrepentant, and virtually unchanged," said SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, following President Obama's speech yesterday on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. While the economy continues to recover, President Obama warned, "normalcy cannot lead to complacency."

Watch President Obama's speech yesterday from Wall Street's Federal Hall:

'Business as Usual'?

"You'd think that the collapse of over 90 banks in one year alone would be a powerful 'lesson learned' for the titans at big financial houses, but on Wall Street, it's back to 'business as usual,' said Burger. After bailing out banks to the tune of $4.7 trillion following the financial collapse, American taxpayers were then hit with the hidden costs of our bank-induced recession: foreclosures, unemployment and bankruptcies.

Now the big banks and financial corporations are hitting us a third time, by lobbying against meaningful reforms that could prevent a repeat of the crisis in the future.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Tom Donohue and his CEO allies might not think so, but America can't afford their reckless and selfish behavior any longer.

The current regulatory framework simply doesn't provide adequate protection to consumers--we need Congress to reform our financial system, fund strict enforcement of the rules, and give long term shareholders the power they need to reign in the out-of-control corporate elite. Let's stop this cycle before more jobs are lost, more homes are foreclosed, and more retirement accounts are wiped out. Don't let the U.S. Chamber and Big Banks delay consumer protection any longer.

UPDATE: Transcript from the President's address from Wall Street can be found here. Watch his address on the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse here:

The President is on Wall Street today, pushing for Change. A year after the collapse at Lehman Brothers and the worldwide financial collapse, President Obama will speak from Wall Street's Federal Hall in New York about the government's role in moving the economy forward after the financial crisis that peaked one year ago. Obama will focus on how to protect consumer's money by enacting stricter regulations of the financial and banking industry to prevent another financial collapse.

The livestream from the speech at Federal Hall begins at 12:10 p.m. ET and 9:10 a.m. PT today. Tune in to watch it here:

Leave your thoughts on the President's speech in the 'comments' section below.