McConnell: Bernanke Will Win; McCain Opposes

Yesterday I learned that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted that Ben Bernanke will win Senate approval for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve System. (Technically the position has the title, "Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System," but as that's a bureaucratic mouthful even for journalists, nobody uses the full title.) McConnell himself wouldn't say which way he would vote, and I suspect is waiting to see which way the political winds are blowing. While some critics on both right and left have criticized the job he's done harshly, many in the big business community like him--as well they might, since he spent tens of billions of dollars bailing them out of the financial mess his inflationary policies helped Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac cause.)

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, however, came out in opposition to the reappointment of Bernanke, whose policies destroyed McCain's presidential candidacy in the weeks after the Republican presidential convention in 2008. McCain came out of the convention leading Obama, but fell behind once Bernanke's 2007-2008 inflationary bubble burst as I warned my students it would as far back as fall of 2007.

Republican Senator John Cornyn has also come out against reappointing Bernanke, and according to the news report below, "Some Republicans have imposed a procedural block on Bernanke's confirmation, forcing Senate leaders to secure a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-member chamber to advance the nomination." Requiring 60 votes can likely means that some Republicans have initiated a filibuster against Bernanke's reappointment. Republican Senator Orin Hatch of Utah, however, supports the nomination, and while two Democrats (Boxer of California and Feingold of Wisconsin) oppose it too, I suspect that President Obama won't have too much trouble rounding up enough Democrats to combine with Hatch and other pro-Bernanke Republicans to kill the filibuster. Still, I can't recall any nominee for Fed chairman to get this sort of opposition on both sides of the aisle in the Senate.

You can read a bit more about the story at http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/bernanke-mcconnell-confirmation-vote/2010/01/24/id/347821