Wednesday, June 24, 2009

More Powerful Fed?

According to this article in today's New York Times, Ben Bernanke is seeking an expansion of the power of the Fed and President Obama supports this.

I'm pretty sure Tyler already addressed this in the Times - here is the article from May. Here is MR. I don't want to simply re-post old things from a better blog than this one, but I think Tyler's point is worth repeating and will need to be repeated over and over for the next couple of years. The Constitution explicitly makes the legislative the most powerful branch, and though it is often easier to defer decision-making powers to the executive branch, I think the Iraqi invasion underscores the need for it to be difficult to make substantial policy decisions.

Personally, I think it's time for the judicial branch to re-assert its authority. Since Jackson, the executive branch is constantly trying to expand. Ever since FDR nearly subsumed the Supreme Court, I think the balance of power has shifted too far away from the court system, and I think the recent expansion of executive power needs to be cut down by the courts. This is unlikely, at best, but I do believe it's what America needs.

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Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. ~Fredrich Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty