The Fed by Public Domain
A political reality that is not getting nearly enough attention is that the Republican simply party doesn't want to see an economic recovery in America. The proof of this is clear. For the nearly three years of the Obama administration the Republicans have obfuscated, prevaricated, obstructed and impeded anything the President tried do. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, has gone so far as to admit that seeing that President Obama serves only one term, not jobs, not the economy, not that 46 million Americans are living below the poverty line, one term for President Obama, is his first priority.
Up to now (at least in public), their callous and cynical behavior had been limited to seeing that congress did nothing that might make the economy better. Yesterday they took their shameful hypocrisy to a new level. They tried to intimidate Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke into joining their do-nothing cabal. Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), wrote Bernanke a letter stating, "We have serious concerns that further intervention by the Federal Reserve could exacerbate current problems or further harm the U.S. economy." There is no evidence suggesting that this statement might be true. In fact, there is abundant evidence that it is just another Republican lie.
The letter opened with the statement. ". . . (W)e submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people." That's particularly ironic coming from a party that has not offered a single idea, has not had a single suggestion, has not made a single proposal to fix the economic disaster they created during eight years of the George Bush administration.
The letter closed with, "We respectfully request that a copy of this letter be shared with each Member of the Board." In other words, we want you all to know we're watching and will remember what you did if we regain the White House and the Senate next year.
We need to remember that, other than the Federal Reserve Chairman, other members of the board are not political appointees. There's a reason for that. From the first, it was the intent of Congress that the decisions of the Fed be free from political influence because it is in a position to stimulate or retard economic growth. Mostly, that distinction has been respected over the years but that has all changed now. This Republic party is so brazen and shameless that there seems to be no limit to the lengths to which they will go and no cap on the number of American lives they will damage in their quest to defeat the President.
