The sentiment is understandable, but Volcker is the only Fed chairman in the history of that execrable institution who cleaned up its mess.
By the time Reagan was elected, inflation was approaching disastrous levels in the US. Mortgages were impossible to get for first-time buyers, car loans were running about 14% and price increases and scarcity had become a way of life.
Volcker clamped down on the money supply -- hard -- and brought inflation under control in a couple years. He did cause a serious recession in doing it, but that's the only way to cure a boom brought on by Fed-made fake money.
I suspect he joined the Obama administration thinking that they really valued his advice. They didn't, which doesn't change the fact that he knows what he's talking about. The next president should appoint him Fed chairman to clean up the mess Bernanke is creating.
P.S. Of course, I'd prefer the Fed were abolished, but that's as likely to happen as killing the Dept. of Education.
My assessment of this situation has from the start been that it would be a long slog through the muck. That day would follow day, month to month, year to year, and nothing much would change. You'd look up one day and four years will have gone by, all like the others. The opposite of robust.
But that keeps telling me DEFLATION. I'm just a schmoe, but it looks that way to me. In a deflationary depression, no amount of pump-priming will save you. You can't get inflation no matter how hard you try. All you do is dig the deflationary hole deeper and tack some more years onto the slog.