Can Bernanke precommit?

The most visible effort to clip the Fed’s wings is a bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Kevin Brady, a Republican from Texas, who is vice-chair of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. His bill would limit the central bank’s mandate to inflation, not employment, and restrict its monetary policy operations to short-term Treasury securities.

Were his bill now law, Mr Brady told the Financial Times, “the Fed would not be able to embark on this third round of quantitative easing”. He said the bill had taken off faster than he had hoped and already had 48 co-sponsors in Congress. “Everyone, whether they agree or not, believes it is the right time to have this discussion.”

And Mitt Romney speaks up for gerontocratic deflation:

“The value of your savings goes down. People who are living on fixed incomes don’t see much interest income any more. And the value of the dollar goes down, and the risk for long-term inflation goes up.”

The full FT story is here.

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