Academic

Who Says the GOP Isn't the Party of Ideas?

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

The House Republicans announced a financial regulatory reform proposal, and it would put all the financial regulators in a committee to deal with systemic risk (which it calls an "independent establishment in the Executive Branch," something all you unitary executive afficianadoes out there can parse) and provide for a fast resolution authority for failed institutions.  Wow, there's no way the Obama administration would have ever come up with such innovations.

Two mild notes of interest in the emerging legislative calculus of the Party of No: the bill calls for Fannie and Freddie to have their charters repealed, and goes after the Fed, not just keeping it out of the systemic regulator position, but also calling for the central bank to be audited regularly by the GAO.

It's the anti-Fed tenor of the party that is most intriguing here.  Republicans are against independent agencies, and the Fed is the quintessence of one.  So in that sense, the position is consistent with deeply held principals and so on.  But in another sense, do you think there's a single Wall Street banker or Fortune 500 CEO who wants the Fed to be subject to more congressional oversight?  They say that Rubinomics made it safe for the middle class to vote for the Democratic party.  If it's Geithner and Summers who are going to protect the central bank from Ron Paul and John Boehner, pretty soon there won't be much question about which party is the party of business, either.  HT: Securities Mosaic.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on July 26, 2009 (boomark / email).