Treason Most Foul!

Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman, raised in the tiny burg of Dillon, South Carolina







Rick Perry, the swaggering, hair-dying, boot-wearing, shoot-from-the-hip "good ole boy" from Texas, said yesterday in Iowa that if Ben Bernanke leads the Fed into a new round of Quantitative Easing, he will be acting "almost treasonous."  Here is Perry's quote:

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what you would do with him. We would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous in my opinion.

Chairman Bernanke is an appointed official, named by President George W. Bush to a fourteen year term to the Fed, and renamed Chairman of the Fed by President Obama.  Since Bernanke doesn't stand for election, one shudders to think what Perry is suggesting when he says "we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines treason as:

Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

So you be the judge. Which of these statements seems to veer closer to the definition of treason?

Statement 1:

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability.  The Committee now expects a somewhat slower pace of recovery over coming quarters than it did at the time of the previous meeting and anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually toward levels that the Committee judges to be consistent with its dual mandate.  Moreover, downside risks to the economic outlook have increased. The Committee also anticipates that inflation will settle, over coming quarters, at levels at or below those consistent with the Committee's dual mandate as the effects of past energy and other commodity price increases dissipate further.  However, the Committee will continue to pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations.

To promote the ongoing economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent.  The Committee currently anticipates that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.  The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.  The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate.

(A portion of August 10, 2011 Statement released by the Federal Open Market Committee, chaired by Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, interpreted by some to signal a willingness to have the Fed buy back more Treasury securities to increase liquidity in the markets, and lower the yield on bonds, bringimg interest rates down.) 

Statement 2:

“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that, My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.”

(April 15, 2009  Statement of Governor Perry speaking to reporters after a Tea Party rally in Austin, Texas, where attendees repeatedly yelled in his presence:  "Secede!").

Time to lock in your votes . . . uh, wait a sec.

Maybe Perry was just a funnin', down home style.  His current supporters dismiss this secession statement as something the governor said with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.   However two days after the the tea party rally, the governor doubled down.  As reported in the Austin American-Statesman on April 17, 2009:

Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday stuck by his earlier statement that Texas can secede from the United States — a far-reaching, legally questionable prospect that nevertheless drew Perry a fresh favorable mention by Rush Limbaugh, one of the nation's leading conservative voices.

On Thursday, Perry called potential secession a "side issue of Texas history. ... We are very proud of our Texas history; people discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I'm sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but the fact is, they can't because they're not Texas."

A Perry spokeswoman said Perry believes Texas could secede if it wanted.

Here's betting on a fairly short shelf life for the Texas governor.  He will have made many more such colorful statements over his four terms, and the national press is probably just beginning to scratch them to the surface.  Hopefully he will keep his head above water long enough to push Bachmann and Palin off the national stage.