Posted on 08/16/2011 6:11:58 AM PDT by markomalley
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) suggestion Monday in Iowa that it would be "treasonous" for the Federal Reserve to engage in more quantitative easing turned heads and raised questions about the limits to Perry's folksiness on the campaign trail.
Perry suggested yesterday on the campaign trail that Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, would find himself in a "pretty ugly" situation in Texas if he were to authorize another round of quantitative easing, a method of pumping more money into the economy by essentially creating more money.
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election,” Perry said at a campaign function in Iowa. “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
The comment quickly made waves overnight, particularly for invoking the concept of treason in response to an economic maneuver.
"Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous— or treasonous in my opinion," Perry said.
Part of Perry's early appeal to conservative primary voters has been his plain-spoken approach to issues important to conservatives. And to be sure, conservatives have griped about each successive round of quantitative easing, accusing Bernanke of manipulating the economy.
But some Republicans took umbrage at the way Perry made his remarks.
"Gov. Perry's comments about Chmn. Bernanke are inappropriate and unpresidential," said Tony Fratto, a former deputy press secretary for President George W. Bush, on Twitter.
it’s going to get interesting, folks!
it’s been a long, long, 3 1/2 years and now it’s our turn.
Perry’s right.
funny anyone would bring up...”treason”
Yes, that borders on treason, because at some point that bubble will burst, then things will get real ugly.
ya know, the printing of the money does not concern me as much as how fast they are going to contract the supply...a sudden contraction in the money supply is one of the direct causes of the great depression....just like we got now, the feds kept pumping cash out during the roaring 20’s, and the sudden contraction, combined with the severity of the contraction, caused the depression.....both kennedy and rockefeller saw this coming and converted to cash in late ‘28 ( hence the scrooge mcduck cartoon ) and they both did real well (if you don’t count the booze running)...watch for the contraction, and convert to cash, because cash will be king
*On the one hand*
That’s funny, Governor Perry. I felt the same way about your support for TARP and for raising the debt ceiling $2.4 TRILLION dollars.
The Federal Reserve is a far greater threat to this nation than Islamism.
I’m no expert, but I saw on another site’s comments (Belmont Club) that Perry had opposed TARP. There’s a lot of spew out there.
The man made a “C” in animal sex and now the teleprompter is saying he understands QE, Some how I do not believe that.
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chests; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in the trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."-- Abraham Lincoln
Perry is always for it before he was against it before he was for it. It is just like the QE that gave him his state stimulus money, he used to balance his state budget, but he was against the money printing but he was for the 82 billion balancing the state budget.
But on the other hand after the worst economy since the Great Depression they might be afraid to contract the money supply and inflation will go nuts once there is any life restored to the economy. In that case cash will be crap. The best place to be would be highly leveraged real estate by borrowing now at a long term rate of 4% and then watching the mortgage value be eroded by inflation.
It all comes down to predicting what Bernanke is more afraid of, and I have no way of doing that.
“Gov. Perry’s comments about Chairman Bernanke are inappropriate and unpresidential,” Tony Fratto declared tonight in a tweet.
Fratto, a former Treasury Department and White House official in George W. Bush’s administration, Managing Partner Hamilton Place Strategies and founder of RooseveltRoom.net, a web site for Bush alumni.
Perry was speaking at a stop during the second day of a three-day campaign swing through Iowa — home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas,” Perry said. “Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous or treasonous in my opinion.”
The audience applauded his tough words.
As Perry continued, he echoed the longtime critique of the Fed often articulated by Ron Paul, the chair of the House Fed oversight panel and a 2012 GOP presidential rival.
“We’ve already tried this. All it’s going to be doing is devaluing the dollar in your pocket and we cannot afford that,” Perry said. “We have to learn the lessons of the past three years that they’ve been devastating. The President of the United States has conducted an experiment on the American economy for almost the last three years, and it has gone tragically wrong and we need to send him a clear message in November of 2012 that new leadership is coming.”
Bush selected Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. President Obama renominated the Republican economist.
Asked by reporters today about former President Bush, Perry demurred.
“George Bush is not my opponent,” Perry said. “He’s a former president.”.....<<<< Source
Perry was opposed to Tarp.
This is what Perry said and I quote:
“As a matter of fact, I signed a letter with the Governor of West Virginia, whos a Democrat, when September/October a year ago, when they were talking about, Oh my goodness, the economy is tanking. Weve got to do something. We signed a letter that basically said you know dont get all frozen up in fear, act. I didnt know we needed to write it out for them and say stop spending all of the money and cut the taxes. Thats the blueprint that worked. And still we got people that voted for this bailout
that was in hindsight now just an absolute giveaway, didnt help the economy at all.”
The hit dawg ALWAYS hollers. Leadership!
I just donated to Perry’s campaign. So far he appears to be a genuine article; especially after revealing his college transcript. Wouldn’t we love to see Bozo’s? We don’t even know who he is!
I originally thought the media would bury Gov. Perry, but it now seems as if he’ll be quite capable of doing that himself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.