Americanly Yours

President Obama announced today that he will nominate Ben Bernanke to serve as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for a second term.  This is a huge mistake.

Ben Bernanke started as Chairman of the Federal Reserve on February 1, 2006–about two years before the economic crisis fully blossomed.  While his policies are not responsible for the onset of the crisis, they have done little to help the situation.  Chairman Bernanke has consistently been wrong about his assessments of the economy since he began his tenure:

I think that nominating Ben Bernanke for a second term is a careless move on President Obama’s part.  For one, the man ran on a platform of “change.”  He hit the Republicans and President Bush particulary hard on two main issues–the administrations handling of the war(s) and the administration’s handling on the economy.

And yet, in his first year of office, President Obama has continued to allow President Bush’s Secretary of Defense to serve, as well as allowing President Bush’s choice for Federal Reserve Chairman to stay on.  Selecting a new Federal Reserve Chairman would have been a great opportunity for the President to reinforce his message of “change.”  He could have dumped Chairman Bernanke and blamed President Bush for the economic crisis in the process.  By renominating Chairman Bernanke, President Obama has taken ownership of the economy, and tacitly accepted President Bush’s decisions with regard to the crisis.

This will be one of the moments that will come back and bite President Obama in the 2012 Presidential elections.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Last night, Congress passed a $410,000,000,000 [$410 billion] spending bill. This bill contained over 8,500 earmarks.

The bill passed in the Senate with 62 votes, 8 of them coming from Republicans.  More interestingly, however, 3 prominent Democrats voted against the bill.  Claire McCaskill voted against the bill, citing her opposition to the earmarks.  Liberal Senator Russ Feingold also voted against the bill for similar reasons, and even released this statement calling on President Obama to veto the bill.

But in my opinion, the most interesting Democratic vote against the spending bill came from Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.  Senator Bayh is a very moderate democrat who is very popular in his state.  He is a fiscal conservative who previously served 8 years as Indiana’s governor, balancing the budget all 8 years without ever raising taxes.  Senator Bayh was so opposed to the bill that he wrote this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week calling for Congress to vote against it.  My opinion is that Senator Bayh is positioning himself for a possible insurgent campaign against President Obama in 2012.  If President Obama continues to waste the people’s money on wasteful and counterproductive “stimulus” and bailouts, Senator Bayh may be able to unseat him.  Lets keep a close eye on this one.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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