GOP to Fed: Let Economy Fail

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/gop-fed-let-economy-fail/1316803444

The headline above is not what GOP congressional leaders actually said today to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, but they might just as well have used that precise language in the letter CNBC reports they sent to the Fed. According to CNBC, the letter instructed the Fed "to refrain from further 'intervention' in the economy.

In other words, now that the GOP has made it all but impossible for fiscal policy to be used to improve they economy, they want to make sure that the only other tool the government has at its disposal -- monetary policy -- isn't used either.

Why take on the Fed? The Republicans have some direct control over fiscal policy because they can either refuse to consider a proposal in the House where they are in the majority or can filibuster legislation in the Senate where they are in the minority. Because the Fed is an independent agency, the GOP can only do what they did today in the letter by threatening to bring down the wrath of god if it dares take any action to get the economy moving.

If you're surprised by this you haven't been reading CG&G. I first posted back in August 2010 that Bernanke had "painted a big bulls eye on the Federal Reserve" when he spoke at the annual conference in Jackson, Wyoming, about the Fed providing additional stimulus if the economy needs it. My exact words were:

More at the link --

[midnight]

1. They are being derelict in their duties to protect this country from harm...

Recall the whole lot of them...

[Cool Logic]

2. Given that Geithner has emptied the magazine in his $3 trillion TARP/stimulus gun,...

and Bernanke's is out of QE bullets, there is not much left that the fed or the fedgov can do.

"It is clear we must enter an era of austerity," Pelosi said Monday,..."

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/174547-with-reid-bill-dems-turn-180-degrees-between-stimulus-and-cuts