Ben Bernanke's plan to expand the authority of the Federal Reserve ran into a a razor-wire fence on Capitol Hill when Senator Jim Bunning blasted the Fed's performance, blaming Bernanke's monetary easing for the decline of the dollar, the rise of oil prices and rising inflation.
"The Fed is asking for more power but the Fed has proven they cannot be trusted with the power they had," Bunning said. "Now the Fed wants to be a systemic risk regulator. But the Fed is a systemic risk."
More colorfully, Bunning, the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher with the 6.35 ERA rookie season, said expanding the powers of the Fed would be like giving the neighborhood kid who broke a window a bigger bat. He promised to do everything in his power to stop the Fed.
Bunning, who has long been a critic of Bernanke, didn't seem to garner much support from his colleagues on the Hill, who made light of the harshly worded criticism. This is pretty typical of the treatment that critics of the Fed get on Capitol Hill, as Congressman Ron Paul has long known.
Bunning has lately come under attack from Democrats, who are upset at his opposition to The Bank of America housing bailout bill. In a particularly personal line of attack, and a breach of the Senate's usually genteel ethics, Democrats been saying that Bunning isn't really a Senator, he's just a baseball player. So far Bunning has refused to respond by saying things like, "Oh, yeah, Robert Byrd? I guess I should have been a Klansman instead. And, you there, Ted Kennedy, well, I'll let you off since you're still sick. No need to drive off that bridge just now..."
This doesn't bode well for the chances that the proposals to expand the Fed's power will be examined very critically or deliberated extensively by lawmakers.
Posted by merkin capital partners, Jul 15, 2008 11:55AM
for every 1 coherent question there have been 5 completely wheels off inquiries. A bank teller could ask better questions than these 'tards.
No one cares that your constituents are poor.