On the recordJanuary 28, 2010
I want to express my concern about the nomination of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and explain why I will vote against him when the Senate has the opportunity this week. I know many of my colleagues will support Mr. Bernanke because he was a cocaptain of the U.S. economic recovery efforts in the last year and a half. Appointed by President Bush, Mr. Bernanke undoubtedly has a difficult job. Our Nation has been jolted by greed, corruption, fraud, and excessive risk-taking that led to the largest taxpayer bailout in history. Mr. Bernanke was holding the reigns, along with officials in the Department of the Treasury, but steered us into an out-of-control spending frenzy with very little oversight by the American people. Ben Bernanke has been wrong about the economy. He was wrong about the subprime lending meltdown. He was apparently blind to the pitfalls of credit default swaps. He misled the American public about the purpose and intent of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He recklessly spent billions of dollars on a few renegade financial firms, picking winners and losers on Wall Street and justified these actions by saying Main Street would be saved. Then, he stonewalled Congress from learning about how the billions of dollars were spent. Ben Bernanke also opposed transparency almost every step of the way.
