Jason sends a long a troubling article from The Economist:
For more than a year, two seats on the Fed's seven-member board of governors have been empty, because the Senate has been unwilling to confirm George Bush's nominees to the job. It has also refused a new term for the Bush-appointed Randall Kroszner, who is hanging on in limbo. On May 28th Rick Mishkin, another governor, said he would depart in August. If the Senate continues to delay, the Fed's board will have only four members--fewer than at any time since at least the 1930s.
No one doubts Mr Bush's candidates are qualified. The hold-up is ideological. Democrats want to wait until after November's election so that a new president can, as one senator put it, "remake the Fed" by appointing a clutch of new people at once. That is reckless on several counts.
The rest of the article explains several reasons why failure to confirm Bush's appointees is irresponsible. The most serious reason is this:
Mr Bernanke's term as Fed chairman expires in 2010. With lots of governors to appoint at once, and the prospect of a new chairman within two years, the next president will have unprecedented power to reshape the Fed. Governors are appointed for overlapping 14-year terms precisely to avoid this concentration of power.
By waiting until the Democrats have the White House they can pack the Board with politically sympathetic members and thereby turn the Fed from an independent institution into an instrument of their political will. It's a similar tactic to that employed by FDR when in 1937 he tried to have the number of Supreme Court Justices increased by six so that he could pack the Court with his own appointees.
The Democrats have dragged their feet in appointing the President's selections for the federal judiciary and they're doing likewise with his nominations to the Federal Reserve Board. The political gamesmanship and jockeying for power is unconscionable when the welfare of the country is at stake. The Democrats' demurrals virtually invite the Republicans to engage in the same behavior as soon as they're in a position to do so, and the whole childish business portends a government that will at some point cease to function.
Of course, those responsible for this calamity will still have their taxpayer subsidized pensions and health care so why should they be concerned?
RLC
