Texas Governor Rick Perry has been on a Bernanke-bashing binge this week, demanding on Wednesday that the Federal Reserve "open their books up."
That comment comes after Perry said earlier this week that it would be "treasonous" if Chairman Ben Bernanke used Fed policy to stimulate the economy before the election.
But what books exactly does Perry want opened?
The Federal Reserve already publishes its balance sheet online every Thursday for the entire world to see.
Not only that, it is audited regularly. Every year, an external accounting firm audits the financial statements of the Federal Reserve and all 12 of its regional banks. Last year, that firm was Deloitte and Touche, but PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG have also done it over the years.
Those financial statements are also posted online.
"Every aspect of the Fed's financial dealings are wide open -- wide open," Bernanke remarked at the National Press Club in February. "There is no sense in which the Fed has secret financial dealings."
Despite that public information, anti-Fed criticism seems to be the latest craze on the Republican campaign trail. On Tuesday, Rep. Michelle Bachmann criticized the Federal Reserve for not being "subject to transparency."
Those comments echo similar sentiments from Rep. Ron Paul, a renowned Fed critic in his own right, who over the years has repeatedly called for audits of the central bank and even a review of all the gold in Fort Knox. Paul introduced a bill in the House earlier this year, called the "Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011.
The Lone Star State is rich in natural resources such as oil and natural gas, so when the rest of the country was struggling with high energy prices at the onset of the recession, Texas companies were turning big profits and, therefore, pumping tax revenue into the state coffers.
These high energy profits helped Texas stave off the brunt of the recession for about six months.
And while the state's economy is growing at twice the national rate, so is its population. Texas grew 20.6 percent from 2000 to 2011, while the country's population only increased by 9.7 percent. With more people comes more purchasing power, which leads to job growth.
Regardless of whether Perry can personally take credit for the jobs created, critics claim the numbers are just smoke and mirrors because the new jobs are primarily low-wage.
"What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote Sunday. "What you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment."
Texas is tied with Mississippi for having the highest proportion of hourly workers earning minimum wage or less, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Overall, Texans earned about $2,300 less than the national average, according to 2009 Census Bureau data.
These low-paying jobs usually do not come with health insurance, which is part of the reason why Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country. One of every four Texans lives without health insurance.
Depending on which measure is used, the jobs picture in Texas can be painted in radically different ways. On one hand, more Texans are getting a paycheck, on average, than in any other state. But on the other hand, those paychecks are more often from low-wage jobs without insurance in a state that has fewer social benefits than most others.
"People focus on the wage and, yeah, that's important, people need to support their families," said Lisa Givens, a spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission. "But sometimes it's about looking down the road, looking at an area where there are going to be opportunities for me and for my family and for growth.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run for U.S. president," Herald Online, Aug. 11.
Sometimes, I can picture Christ spinning up there in Paradise as he observes people like evangelical "Christian" Texas governor and promising potential U.S. Republican party presidential candidate Rick Perry, who proudly recently held a national prayer event to call for God's help in rescuing Americans "adrift in a sea of moral relativism."
This, from a Christian who would, as he did in Texas, almost certainly slash federal health and education budgets if voted into the White House - in order, of course, to spare U.S. giant corporations and billionaires from a progressive, fair tax burden.
I disagree with the court's ruling. I think the governor misused his office to promote a particular religion. That might have been clearer to the judge if Perry had organized a rally in support of Islam rather than Christianity. There's no difference as far as the First Amendment is concerned.
In any case, Gov. Perry's decision to make his Christian faith a central part of his political identity opens him up to questions not usually asked of presidential candidates.
The press has traditionally been unwilling to question politicians about their religion. But in Perry's case, Christianity is front and center on his platform. I hope David Gregory will ask him some of the following questions when he next appears on Meet the Press, and that other members of the media won't shy away from them either.
First, are Rick Perry's political positions in line with Christ's teachings?
I see a fundamental inconsistency between Perry's concerted opposition to government social programs and his promotion of himself as a Christian politician. When asked about the impact of Texas's low-tax, low-service policies on the poor, he suggested that people who wanted more government services could find them in New York or California.
Christ teaches us to feed the hungry and care for the sick, not to abandon them. Perhaps Gov. Perry hasn't read that part of the Bible where Christ admonishes us to care for "the least among us."
It's more likely that he knows that passage but reads it in a particular light. When I wrote Failing America's Faithful, I interviewed Rick Warren, the evangelical Christian minister and author, about his bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life. Rick very kindly welcomed me to Saddleback, the church he had founded more than 30 years before. He and his wife were gracious to me. I was impressed by the thoughtfulness with which he reached out to his congregation, and his sensitivity to their needs and wants.
I had read his book, and coming from a different Christian tradition, I was struck by how much it focused on getting you to feel good about yourself rather than caring about your neighbor, which Christ had said was the greatest commandment.
Warren, who now runs many charitable programs and supports government efforts to help the poor and the sick, was forthright in explaining that his views had changed since writing the book. The evangelical church he had grown up in, he told me, had focused on the believer's personal relationship to Jesus and pretty much ignored the social side of the gospel. He finally realized that he had "missed the 2,500 passages" in the Bible that called on him to care about other people, including those outside his church.
Does Rick Perry acknowledge those 2,500 passages? That's the second question I'd like the press to ask him. Maybe he believes, like some socially conservative evangelicals, that these passages refer only to personal charity, not government programs. But I don't see any place in the Bible that says we shouldn't use all the tools we have at hand to help the poor, the sick, and the hungry.
The same conservative Christians claim that the Bible teaches them that the government should outlaw gay marriage and stem cell research. But why should the government carry out some Biblical injunctions and not others?
The Bible is certainly open to interpretation. For example, most churches in America today don't require us to gouge out our eyes if we look lustfully at someone, or to cut off our hand if we use it a sinful way. And yet, right there in Matthew 5:27-30 are clear instructions.
How does Gov. Perry interpret the Bible? Even more to the point, I'd like to hear him explain how he arrived at his interpretations. If you're running for president in a democratic country, it's not enough to proclaim that the Bible says something is right or wrong. You must have reasoned positions. Catholics have been taught to inquire into God's will by using our reason, examining nature, and listening to Church teaching -- as well as by interpreting the Bible.
A last question for the governor: does he believe that God agrees with his reading of the Bible? I'm not saying he does believe this; I'm just wondering.
An alternative to assuming our views are aligned with God's is to humbly acknowledge that God works in mysterious ways, and that our human nature may blind us to His will. In that case, our belief in God could lead us to question the infallibility of our own interpretations rather than making us proud. Pride, at least in the Catholic catechism, is one of the seven deadly sins.
