James Fallows made the following comments last month regarding Rick Perry's attack on Ben Bernake:

"For the past few months, Democrats have had the suspicion that Republicans are playing a double or even triple-game in opposing the Obama Administration on spending and deficit issues. At the most principled levels, they're upholding their belief in a smaller government. At the next level down, they're trying to limit Obama's operational successes wherever they can. And, most cynical of all, they understand the idea of "the worse, the better." The surest path toward beating Obama next year is for the economy to stagnate or decline.

Perry's comments about Ben Bernanke cut through any such subtlety. If Bernanke "prints money" in the next 15 months, toward the end of forestalling a recession or preserving jobs, Perry would consider that "almost treasonous." This is the kind of thing you just don't hear from national-level politicians, and for a reason. (For starters: the punishment for treason is death."

Rather, it is their utter transparancy in furthering this agenda that is startling. There is, in fact, a principle based argument for smaller government. And a diciplined opposition would carefully frame their arguments to at least appear to be working for the benefit of the country.

Paul Krugman, in a September 8th Op Ed column in the New York Times titled Setting their Hair on Fire quotes from a speech by Charles Evens, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago:

 "As Mr. Evans pointed out, the Fed, both as a matter of law and as a matter of social responsibility, should try to keep both inflation and unemployment low — and while inflation seems likely to stay near or below the Fed’s target of around 2 percent, unemployment remains extremely high.

So how should the Fed be reacting? Mr. Evans: “Imagine that inflation was running at 5 percent against our inflation objective of 2 percent. Is there a doubt that any central banker worth their salt would be reacting strongly to fight this high inflation rate? No, there isn’t any doubt. They would be acting as if their hair was on fire. We should be similarly energized about improving conditions in the labor market.”" 

You can debate theory until hell freezes over. But it is a no brainer to prioritize our current high unemployment rate as more pressing than potentially higher inflation in the future.

In fact, it is a no brainer for the Fed to do everything possible to stimulate our economy, given the relatively low level of inflation. If a person is obese, smokes, and then is stricken with a heart attack, you try to get the person breathing and stabilized. You don't give him a lecture on lifestyle. 

Today, the Republican Congressional Leadership [McConnell, Boehner, Kyl, and Cantor] has sent a letter to Bernake urging him to forgo any further stimulus to the economy.

They are effectively saying that the Fed shouldn't take any immediate action, because it MIGHT WORK. Before the 2012 election. 

The Republican House has emphatically decided to run out the clock prior to the next election. 

And now they are pressuring the Fed to follow suit.

The money quote in the letter:

"While intended to improve the short-term growth of the U.S. economy and help maintain a stable price level, such a measure introduces significant uncertainty..."

They are saying that they prefer the certainty of a stalled economy to the uncertainty of Fed measures that address the absense of growth. Among those uncertainties are the possibility that the Fed actions will HELP the economy. Before the election. 

 They want to guard againg potential future problems. When they should be acting as if their hair were on fire.