There were three votes in the Senate yesterday confirming President Obama's Fed nominees. Stanley Fischer was confirmed to be Vice Chairman of the Fed's Board of Governors and Jerome Powell and Lael Lael Brainard were both confirmed as members of the Board of Governors. The nominations were not considered "controversial" and all three sailed through the Senate, with no one opposing them except a handful of Republican obstructionists who, basically, oppose everything and anything. Oh, and Bernie Sanders. His perspective is that foxes were being hired to guard the chicken coop. Two of the nominees have Wall Street banking ties and one was a corporate consultant.Brainard, a former Treasury official, was voted on first and he was approved 61-31, all the Democrats plus 11 Establishment Republicans voting aye. Next up was Powell, a Republican and already a member since 2012 but confirmed for a new 14-year term; he did even better, with a 67-24 super-majority. Even some of the real fire-breathing extremists like Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Shelby (R-AL), who all voted against Brainard, approved Powell. But not Bernie. He wasn't playing childish partisan games.Last up was Fischer, a former head of the Bank of Israel, and he was confirmed 63-24 with more senators skipping out of the chamber and not voting at all.Bernie's statement on why he voted against all three makes a lot of sense-- and certainly doesn't have anything to do with why the Republican obstructionists voted no. "Congress," he reminded Obama and his economic team, "requires the Fed to maximize employment and minimize inflation. At a time when real unemployment in the United States is more than 12 percent, it is clear that the Fed is not doing enough to help create the millions of decent-paying jobs that Americans desperately need. We need Fed governors who will act with a fierce sense of urgency to address the unemployment crisis that our nation faces. We also need tough financial regulators who will stop the reckless gambling on Wall Street and prevent another financial crisis from happening again. We need the Fed to stand up to Wall Street and their powerful lobbyists and fight for policies that protect the working families in our country. I do not believe that any of these nominees fit that bill."We have a presidential election in 2016. Why settle?
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