From Politco’s Playbook: On the pending vote to confirm Fed Chair Ben Bernanke to a second term:
A senior administration official, from downtown: “It’s amazing that Senate Rs can barely muster a majority for a Republican who was named TIME’s ‘Man of the Year’ and who served in the Bush White House, was appointed to his current job by President George W. Bush and has the full support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Main Street American business. And their main complaint is that he saved the world from what Jim Cramer has called the ‘financial stone age.’ Is the minority leader Ron Paul? Someone’s learned the wrong lesson from the MA race and it’s not President Obama.”
What’s amazing is that Democrats will provide more support than Republicans for a
Republican who served in the Bush White House, was appointed to his current job by a failed president, has the full support of the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street, and
Championed the market fundamentalism and financial deregulation that led to the financial collapse, and
Refused to recognize or act on a housing bubble inflated by systematic fraudulent mortgage practices that he had the power to regulate, and
Reassured worried legislators that the deriviatives market was safe, with its players sophisticated investors that knew the risks and could take their losses, and
Committed trillions of dollars without a vote of Congress to private financial institutions here and abroad – and now refuses independent audit and congressional investigation because that would infringe “monetary policy,” and
Opposes the president’s core financial reforms, arguing that the Fed Reserve should remain the key regulator despite its self evident failure to use its powers under his watch, and
Has been central to rescuing the banks in a manner that has left them more concentrated, now with an explicit promise that they are too big to fail, and stands by as they reopen the casino, while refusing to increase lending to the real economy.
Someone’s learned the wrong lesson from the MA race and it is not faux populist Republicans.
