Vote down Ben Bernanke’s reappointment as Fed Chairman

According to a report in today’s Politico:

“Most analysts expect Bernanke to be confirmed, but a cloture process requiring 60 votes would underscore the political heat enveloping the Federal Reserve.

“'It would be extraordinary, but I don't know that it means much more than we know,’ said Doug Elliott, of the Brookings Institution. ‘I think he'll probably be voted in 3 to 1 or at least 2 to 1. If you've got 40 votes against him, that would be more of a message.’”

If Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), all refuse to remove the holds they have placed on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s reconfirmation vote in the U.S. Senate—which seems almost certain—Majority Leader Harry Reid would be forced to get 60 votes to invoke cloture to bring Bernanke’s nomination to the floor.  This sets up an opportunity for Senate Republicans to change themselves first, as I proposed in my recent blogs, before asking the American People to entrust control of the U.S. Congress to them in the upcoming midterm elections in November. 

If the Republican Party is to bring change to America, it will first be necessary to change the way monetary policy is made in this country in order to restore the value of the dollar and make it as good as gold once again.  That process must begin by rejecting easy money and continued federal bailouts, and the only way to begin that process is to reject the individual who has been engineering easy money and bank bailouts for the past four years as Fed and had helped crank the Fed printing press as a member of the Fed in the early part of the decade.  

With Bernie Sanders’s vote against Bernanke’s reappointment almost certain, the 40 Senate Republicans can stop his reappointment if they all vote against cloture on a motion to bring his nomination to the floor.  If, as looks likely, Republican Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat tomorrow in Massachusetts, the Republican Party won’t even need Sanders’s vote to prevail.

 So, it all boils down to what the Republican Party is really all about.  Is it about winning elections or is it about changing America for the better?  The Bernanke vote will be an early indication whether the GOP is prepared to change its ways to earn the trust and confidence of the American electorate.