It is our understanding that the Board Members of the Federal Reserve will meet later this week to consider additional monetary stimulus proposals. We write to express our reservations about any such measures. Respectfully, we submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people.
Stan Collender äußerte sich dazu:
In other words, now that the GOP has made it all but impossible for fiscal policy to be used to improve they economy, they want to make sure that the only other tool the government has at its disposal -- monetary policy -- isn't used either.
Why take on the Fed? The Republicans have some direct control over fiscal policy because they can either refuse to consider a proposal in the House where they are in the majority or can filibuster legislation in the Senate where they are in the minority. Because the Fed is an independent agency, the GOP can only do what they did today in the letter by threatening to bring down the wrath of god if it dares take any action to get the economy moving.
There’s a well-established line of work in economics on the political business cycle, starting with a paper by my original mentor Bill Nordhaus (pdf). The basic idea was that since voters tend to have short memories, it pays for a government to reflate the economy centering on the proposition that government have an incentive to reflate the economy in the period leading up to an election, even if this imposes costs that will have to be paid later. [...]
But now there’s a new wrinkle. As Stan Collender says, it’s hard to see the GOP letter threatening Ben Bernanke if he does anything to help the economy as anything but an attempt to invert the political business cycle, pressuring the central bank to ensure a weak economy in the year before the election.
Politiker, die ihre Wiederwahl anstreben, wollen gute wirtschaftliche Daten vorweisen, um diese für sich beanspruchen und als Wahlwerbung verwenden zu können. Die Opposition hingegen, die danach strebt, eine politische Ablöse zu erreichen, kalkuliert damit, dass eine schwache Wirtschaft dem Amtsinhaber angelastet wird, was bei den Wahlen dem Herausforderer zugutekommen sollte.
Die Präsidentschaftswahl in den USA wird im November 2012 stattfinden. Der amtierende Präsident Obama, seines Zeichens Demokrat, stellt sich der Wiederwahl. Er wird sich im Wahlkampf mit einem republikanischen Herausforderer auseinandersetzen müssen, der an der Wirtschaftspolitik Obamas kein gutes Haar lassen wird.
