GOP Abuses Senate Rules to Block Nobel Economist from Federal Reserve Board

Proving there’s no end to the abuse of Senate rules, Alabama Republican Richard Shelby is refusing to lift his “hold” on Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond even though the acclaimed economist just won the 2010 Nobel Prize.

Shelby, the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, claims that Diamond doesn’t have sufficient experience and that there’s no time for “board members who are learning on the job.”

That’s ridiculous, says the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, noting that none of the Board members had Federal Reserve experience before serving and that Board Chair Ben Bernanke was one of Diamond’s students at MIT. “They all learned on the job,” Klein wrote. “Shelby's argument against Diamond is cover for his actual objections … simple partisan politics.”

The New York Times said if Republicans continue to block Diamond they will “deprive the Fed of one of the best minds in economics.” The Times noted critical knowledge Diamond would bring, as he and two fellow laureates “are being recognized precisely for their groundbreaking work into the ways in which joblessness, job vacancies and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy.”

CWA President Larry Cohen said obstructing someone as qualified as Diamond is exactly why the Senate rules have to change, and why the Nov. 2 election is so critical. “Republicans are out there bragging about saying ‘no’ to everything,” he said. “They don’t care what it costs our country, our economy or our struggling families. If we let them get away with it, we all lose.”