Bill Foster: “In a recent speech, Ben Bernanke talked about using mortgage loan-to-value limits as a macroeconomic tool.”

While the Presidency is often the focus of political pronouncements about macroeconomic conditions, there is no question that it undersells the importance and the independence of the work of the Federal Reserve Board.

This made the discharge petition much more effective at its intended purpose, which is sort of to operate as a safety valve against, you know, the Speaker's rather dictatorial power.

I guess when things are going well, as they currently are, it is all of our duties to look around the curve and see the risks that keep you up at night.

I have been amused for a long time at how can it be that there is legislation supported by 70 or 80 percent of the public, a clear majority of Members of Congress, and yet we are not allowed to even vote on it.