When Republican House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) threaten the Fed if it tries to help the economy with monetary policy, their low-concept imitation of Ron Paul is economically ignorant and historically unprecedented. When Republican candidate Rick Perry threatens the Fed with charges of treason and comes close to threatening violence if the Fed chairman visits Texas, his polyester impersonation of Paul makes him intellectually and morally unfit for the presidency.
When the books are written, one story of the 2012 campaign will be the full magnitude of influence that Ron Paul has achieved over Republican economic policy. For better or worse, it is an enormous achievement for Paul that his lifetime body of work is now a consensus policy of the Republican Party.
The larger story, when the books are written, will be how Republican leaders in Congress appear hell-bent on returning the nation to the economic crash that began under the last Republican president, as so many recessions and depressions have begun under Republican leadership.
Here is how Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are imitating 30 years of Ron Paul policies and destroying the American economy:
Never before in American history have leaders of any party attacked the Federal Reserve Board for trying to use monetary policy to strengthen the economy during a recession or depression. It has never happened before, not once in American history.
Never before in American history have leaders of any party done what Republican leaders and Republican candidates are doing today: attacking any effort to help the economy through monetary policy, and attacking any effort to help the economy through fiscal policy, at the same time, during a recession or depression. It has never happened before. Not once. Not ever. Even the most conservative Republican leaders in American history have never done anything like this.
Ron Paul was right to call for Fed disclosure. Ron Paul was right to call for Congress to begin serious oversight of Fed action. But Ron Paul is wrong, dead wrong, fatally wrong, disastrously wrong and catastrophically wrong to attack the concept of using monetary policy, properly applied, and to use fiscal policy, properly applied, to increase growth and create jobs during a recession or depression.
Ron Paul has won the debate within the Republican Party and is now dominating the debate in Republican circles. But when the Speaker and majority leader of the House translate Paul's policies into congressional threats against the Fed, they are ignorant of economic policy, ignorant of economic history and driving the nation to an economic crash.
It was Republican President George W. Bush who led the nation to the last crash. It is Republican leaders today who are driving the nation to the next crash. It will be Republicans in the House running for reelection in 2012 who will pay the heavy price politically, because the more Ron Paul wins the economic debate within his party, the more Americans lose their jobs throughout our country.