Right now, with millions of Americans still out of work, and struggling to recover from the worst economic downturn since the great depression, with 40 million Americans dealing with student loans, with millions of people working full-time at minimum wage and still living in poverty, with the big banks getting bigger and the workers getting poorer, and seniors struggling to make ends meet, Republicans in Washington have decided the most important thing for them to focus on is how to deny women access to birth control.

Good for Warren Buffett that he can afford to do that! Some people, sometimes, need to finance a purchase or rent a car, and a credit card becomes a necessity.

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.

I can remember riding in the car with [my daughter] Amelia, when she was very small, and we'd talk about money the same way we'd talk about sparkly shoes or what had happened at school.

It's critical to level the playing field, to make prices and risks clear up front, so when someone signs on for a student loan or a mortgage or a credit card, they know the tricks and traps hidden in the fine print. That's why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been working on a new financial aid shopping sheet. A shorter, two-page credit card agreement, a simpler mortgage disclosure form. All those are aimed toward helping people understand the basic bargain.

As a Democrat, one of the things that frustrates me the most is there are a lot of times we just don't get in the fight. We ask pretty please if we can have things or we make the argument for why it is the best thing to do, and then wait patiently for the other side to agree to come along. We negotiate. We start our opening position by negotiating.

I don't want to overstate the gender difference. But women are more sensitized to the way that larger issues affect their pocketbooks, like pay equality or cost of living changes.