Welcome to your Tuesday open thread. It’s day #2 of a shortened work week that already feels a hundred years long. What is it about days before a vacation that make every day seem soooo looooong?
Texas Governor Rick Perry sounds like someone who knows he’ll never be president.
With that in mind, don’t be too surprised by his adamant denial of rumors that he might follow in the footsteps of the man he replaced in Austin, George W. Bush, and run for president in 2012. It’s not that Perry doesn’t have ambition, he told Fox’s Chris Wallace yesterday — it’s that he thinks the Governor of Texas will soon be more powerful than the President.
“I think being the governor of a state like Texas…is a more pivotal job in the future,” Perry said when Wallace asked him about running for President. “I do indeed hope that there’s someone in the future that says, ‘I’m going to go to Washington, try to get back to our Constitutional roots and devolve this centralization of government back to the states.’ So why would you want to be up there if the action is down here in the states?”
Oooooookaaaaayyyyy *backs away slowly from the crazy man* You keep hearing about the “D.C. bubble.” When are we going to start talking about the teabagger bubble?
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) blasted Republicans in an interview Monday, arguing that the GOP has taken the side of “foreign central banks” in debates over monetary policy.
“What’s striking to me, frankly … you said that Republicans are criticizing [Federal Reserve Chairman] Ben Bernanke. That’s part of it. The Republicans are joining the Central Bank of China in attacking Bernanke. This is really distressing to me,” he told Bloomberg Television’s Margaret Brennan.
Republicans have recently come out against the Fed’s asset-purchase program because they say it will cause a rise in inflation. Among those who have sent letters of opposition to Bernanke are Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) and several Reagan-era economic officials.
Inflation is at its lowest rate in many, many years. Why are Republicans worried about it? Perhaps they should look up some basic numbers before rambling on?