Miers Nomination: The Greenspan Analogy
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Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will retire when his current term expires on January 31, 2006. So President Bush will have yet another important nomination to send to the Senate:
Suppose this hypothetical nominee were a woman, an underrepresented minority at the Federal Reserve. She has a basic banking education from a mediocre college and business school. She is generally considered by everyone who knows her as a competent, perhaps even outstanding private banker.
She admittedly has quite an impressive résumé as a private banker and as a woman: She "broke through barriers" and "penetrated the old boy network" of Texas banking, becoming co-CEO of a major Houston bank, the first female president of the Houston Bankers Association and later the first female president of the Texas Bankers Association. She has participated in numerous civic groups and charitable organizations. She even served one term (having run unopposed) as an at-large representative on the Houston City Council.
Oh, and she ran the Texas Horse Racing Commission.
She has been a close personal financial adviser to the Bush family generally and George W. Bush personally for many years.
She has, however, no experience, none whatsoever, as a central banker or financial regulator. Her views on monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade policy, Social Security reform and banking regulation are known only to the president, who urges us to "trust him." "She shares my monetary policy philosophy," President Bush assures us.
Other defenders of her nomination insist that experience as a central banker is not a requirement for Fed Chairman: "The Federal Reserve is already full of professional financial regulators — it would be refreshing to have an outsider at the Fed," we are told.
Sound ridiculous?
How is the Miers nomination any less ridiculous?
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Meanwhile, the "Gang of 14" who brokered the "no filibuster, no nuclear option" agreement for the president's judicial nominees seems to have already decided that nominating a patently unqualified person to the Supreme Court is not an "extraordinary circumstance" that would void the agreement. We were originally told that any Supreme Court opening could be viewed as an "extraordinary circumstance" falling outside the compromise.
Which merely shows that the agreement was never really a grand exercise in solemn, principles-based mediation at all, but simply business-as-usual petty politics. Is anyone really surprised? (Hat tip to California Yankee.)
The post, sometimes called the second most powerful in the world, has as much, if not more, impact on the daily lives of Americans. As the Fed sets short-term interest rates and in effect controls the nation's money supply, its policies have a direct link to economic growth, the pace of job creation and the rate of inflation.So what if the president were to "pull a Miers" and nominate his family's long-time personal banker?
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Like a Supreme Court justice, the Fed chairman has to serve above the political fray and make decisions on sound principles that won't unnerve investors or monetary markets.
And, like the new "Roberts court," which will tackle an array of highly charged social issues, the next leader of the Federal Reserve will inherit an economic picture with major issues of its own — massive federal debt and rising energy prices at the top of the list.
Suppose this hypothetical nominee were a woman, an underrepresented minority at the Federal Reserve. She has a basic banking education from a mediocre college and business school. She is generally considered by everyone who knows her as a competent, perhaps even outstanding private banker.
She admittedly has quite an impressive résumé as a private banker and as a woman: She "broke through barriers" and "penetrated the old boy network" of Texas banking, becoming co-CEO of a major Houston bank, the first female president of the Houston Bankers Association and later the first female president of the Texas Bankers Association. She has participated in numerous civic groups and charitable organizations. She even served one term (having run unopposed) as an at-large representative on the Houston City Council.
Oh, and she ran the Texas Horse Racing Commission.
She has been a close personal financial adviser to the Bush family generally and George W. Bush personally for many years.
She has, however, no experience, none whatsoever, as a central banker or financial regulator. Her views on monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade policy, Social Security reform and banking regulation are known only to the president, who urges us to "trust him." "She shares my monetary policy philosophy," President Bush assures us.
Other defenders of her nomination insist that experience as a central banker is not a requirement for Fed Chairman: "The Federal Reserve is already full of professional financial regulators — it would be refreshing to have an outsider at the Fed," we are told.
Sound ridiculous?
How is the Miers nomination any less ridiculous?
---
Meanwhile, the "Gang of 14" who brokered the "no filibuster, no nuclear option" agreement for the president's judicial nominees seems to have already decided that nominating a patently unqualified person to the Supreme Court is not an "extraordinary circumstance" that would void the agreement. We were originally told that any Supreme Court opening could be viewed as an "extraordinary circumstance" falling outside the compromise.
Which merely shows that the agreement was never really a grand exercise in solemn, principles-based mediation at all, but simply business-as-usual petty politics. Is anyone really surprised? (Hat tip to California Yankee.)
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Posted by KipEsquire on
6 October 2005
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