I had large misgivings about Ben Bernanke before his hearings began. He's given credit for steering our economy to safe shores after we hit an enormous economic iceberg. First, I would argue we are nowhere near safe shores. Second, why are we rehiring the guy who steered the Titanic into the iceberg in the first place?
But despite all of that, I wasn't dead set against him. He does have Republicans and Democrats who believe in him. He obviously has the confidence of President Obama (though, so does Geithner and Summers, so that might not tell you much). He is an expert on the Great Depression. The problem is he was at least partly responsible for creating the situation that called for his expertise. His knowledge in handling depressions might not be so handy if he hadn't gotten us into one.
So, I was not predisposed to support him but I was not dead set against him, either. Until now.
He just said in his hearings that he would get more money by going after Social Security and Medicare. When Sen. Reed suggested that we could also get the money by taxing some of the richest people in America (some of whom got rich causing the economic crash in the first place), all of sudden he demurred. He says that's not his place to say if we should ever raise taxes. But apparently it is his place to encourage going after your retirement money. So, taxing the rich is never under consideration, going after the retirement money of the middle class is his first option. Sorry to be blunt, but fuck that.
He even has the nerve to quote famous bank robber Willie Sutton by saying that he would go after Social Security and Medicare because "that's where the money is." Well, give him points for honesty. He plans on robbing more of your money to give to his Wall Street friends - because that's where the money is. As if they haven't taken enough of our money.
First of all, this shows that it was not a coincidence that George W. Bush selected him as the head of the Fed. He has a bipartisan reputation in Washington. But going after these programs shows you his inclination is unmistakably Republican. Screw the middle class first and protect the rich at all costs. But more importantly, it's a matter of perspective. From his perspective, he doesn't consider raising taxes of the wealthiest people in the country, or even more pertinent the taxes on financial transactions, as even a remote possibility. His perspective is to protect Wall Street, not you. He views you as the bank that they withdraw from.
On top of all this, he refuses to disclose where the Fed distributes its money and says we shouldn't audit the Fed to find out where they send trillions of our dollars to. Is this a joke? This guy is going to have enormous power to distribute our currency and unlike Congress he doesn't even have to account for the money. And we're going to hand over the keys to the economy to a guy with this perspective? Hell no! We'd be crazy to agree to this.
Is Ben Bernanke the change we voted for? How can anyone believe that? What is the matter with Obama? Picking the same guy as Bush, and the same exact guy who was at the helm when the economy crashed, is definitely not change we can believe in. Ben Bernanke is the definition of the status quo. He is part and parcel of the Washington and Wall Street establishment that caused our economic problems in the first place. Why the hell would we put this guy back in charge?