With their jobs (and money and power and prestige and perks) on the line, watch both parties' incumbents really take it to Bernanke as the source of all that ills the economy today. Watch them try to CYA by making the Fed the fall down guy.
And watch Bernanke either roll over, thus earning his Republican party credentials, or watch him stand up and do what's right for the country, not for these incumbents or the GOP.
Which way will he go? I think he'll chicken out and stop the rises before the election (as the Fed historically always does), then play catch-up in 2007 to fix this mistake.
Bernanke May Give Republican Lawmakers Bad Election-Year News
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may deliver his fellow Republicans a message they'd rather not hear when he gives Congress his monetary-policy report this week: The economy is slowing and inflation remains a risk.
President George W. Bush and his Republican colleagues, trailing in the opinion polls, are counting on the strength of the economy to help them retain control of Congress in the November elections. A slowing economy -- in response to repeated Fed interest-rate increases -- will undercut that campaign theme.
``They're certainly going to be blamed if the economy slows down,'' says Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the Republican- leaning American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ``That's something they need to worry about.''
Others aren't so kind. Republican Senator Jim Bunning, a long-time Fed critic, says he intends to confront Bernanke at this week's hearing about the problems he's causing the economy by continuing to raise rates.
The Kentucky senator has called Bernanke an ``amateur'' and blasted the former Princeton University professor for unnerving markets with his anti-inflation rhetoric. ``He's been in a cocoon of academia and is not ready for prime time,'' says Bunning.
The unease is shared by some Democrats. ``I think this has been overly aggressive,'' Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd told reporters on July 11. ``Because he's new and probably less sure of himself in these matters, he's leading the Fed to be a bit more over-reactive.''
July 18, 2006
Watch the congressional incumbents go after Bernanke this week
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
God, can you just smell the fear!
When our imperial, elected 'dead weight' start attacking Ben from both sides of the isle, you know that he is on the right track.
Go Ben! Show em what your made of! Damn the Porkers, Full Speed Ahead!
The Senate again exposes its ignorance.
What's the big deal? Bernanke is an amateur, and he needs to get roughed up a bit if there is any hope for his survival in DC.
Bunning will do him a favor in a "that which does not kill us makes us stronger", kind of way
It's better to not let inflation take root than to have to purge it from the system.
These bumbling idiot Senators aren't worth their suits. I'm voting against all incumbents - new people can't possibly do worse.
Also a strong supporter of term limits.
It says something about the intellect of those that voted for him (D)
Senator Bunning is laughable.
He (probably truly) has Alzheimers and refused to debate his opponent on television.
2004:
But Mongiardo has proved an unexpectedly skillful campaigner, while Bunning has been behaving so bizarrely as to fuel speculation that he is suffering from some sort of undisclosed medical condition. He's stalked away from news interviews, likened the dark-complexioned Mongiardo to one of Saddam Hussein's sons, freaked-out Louisville civic leaders by stating falsely that they'd lost federal funding for a bridge, engaged in verbal fisticuffs with a Republican Navy veteran at a Rotary Club and requested extra security because, as he warned a Paduch television station: "There may be strangers among us." Bunning has declined to release his medical records, although he did offer up letters from his physicians describing his blood pressure (normal at 134/82) and his cholesterol level (a healthy 161).
Moreover, Bunning has virtually stopped taking questions in public and has instead limited himself to reading, briefly and woodenly, from short, prepared texts. He would agree to only one debate with Mongiardo. But he insisted that the debate be pre-recorded without an audience present and that his challenger promise not use video footage of Bunning's performance in any television ads.
Does anyone think the US Gov't would hyperinflate to get out from under the debt load? If it really is foriegners who would be holding the bag on the RE loans, then why not?
It would be bad for a guy like me - no debt, cash, 401K savings...
"Because we elect them."??
We don't have any choice but to elect them. You get a Dem or a Repub. No other option available.
Our elections are a farce. They just give the masses the illusion of making a choice.
Sometimes you get someone sane and honest like Ron Paul, but he snuck by because he's from a tiny district in Texas. Try to vote him in as President. His plane would have an "accident" before they ever let him win.
You're naive if you don't understand this. We're talking about nearly unlimited power and money available to the ruthless and cunning. Our quaint ideas of morality don't exist in that world. (except as leverage to be used against us)
the GOP isn't worried. They will just steal the next elections over and over and over again..... Problem solved.
You guys like politics :-)
Check out Bush in action. I want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Post a Comment