Last month, President Biden announced three Federal Reserve nominees – Sarah Bloom Raskin, who is already on the Board of Governors but who Biden wants serving as Vice Chair for Supervision, as well as Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson, both of whom he nominated to serve on the Board of Governors.
Republican Senators have expressed concerns about all three of them, but their criticisms of Cook are getting a lot of attention from the Usual Suspects on the left and in the media because she’s the first black woman nominated to serve on the Fed Reserve Board of Governors. And as we’ve already seen from Joe Biden’s statement confirming he would nominate a black woman, any questions raised about Cook’s qualifications are being painted as “racism.”
Last week, the Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a nomination hearing for the three of them. They all faced tough questions, but the line of questioning from some of the Republicans on the committee towards Cook had to do with her “woke” stances and whether or not she embellished her credentials, issues that were highlighted by an investigative report done by The Daily Caller just days after Biden nominated Cook:
Cook claims that she is a macroeconomist, but a review of her published work does not show any peer-reviewed macroeconomic publications.[…]“In her extensive writing for academic journals and think tank essays listed under ‘publications,’ you will find essentially nothing related to monetary policy, monetary effects on employment, interest rates, inflation, financial regulation or other traditional Fed topics,” wrote Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane in a blog post. “Lisa Cook is superbly qualified — if the job is to bring the Administration and progressive supporters’ racial policies to the Fed. That might mean requiring DEI or ESG practices at banks, or to companies that banks lend to, directing credit to some areas or by race, and strengthening the DEI initiatives and race based hiring and promotion practices within the Fed.”Cook’s CV lists a publication in the American Economic Review (AER), the top peer-reviewed economics journal in the world. The publication, “Metals or Management? Explaining Africa’s Recent Economic Growth Performance,” would be her single greatest academic accomplishment. However, the paper was actually published in AER Papers and Proceedings (AER P&P), a separate publication that is not peer-reviewed.[…]The vast majority of Cook’s writing focuses on the effects of racial bias and discrimination. An Axios article stated that “Cook’s academic writing suggests she is a dove,” but a list of her written works does not include titles concerning central banking, financial industry supervision, inflation or monetary policy.
Also, a report published by the Free Beacon indicates that Cook may have made up a story about how she allegedly “led an effort in the 1980s to hold school officials at her alma mater captive until they voted to divest from South Africa.”
Cook, a Berkeley graduate, also appears to be a proponent of cancel culture and getting people fired from their jobs for disagreeing with her:
Cook, an economics professor at Michigan State University who was also a senior economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers for about a year, has expressed support for reparations and defunding the police, radical positions her Republican critics have characterized as part of a pattern of “hyper-partisan” left-wing activism over the years which they worry will bleed over into her role on the Fed Board, which is supposed to be non-partisan and independent.
On Friday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson did a segment on the issues with Cook:
Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Tom Cotton have been two of the more vocal opponents of Cook’s confirmation, citing wokeness and an unhinged nature, two things that definitely aren’t needed on the Federal Reserve:
Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty questioned Cook last week on her “mischaracterizing” of her academic record. Cook claimed it was nothing more than a baseless “anonymous” campaign:
Oddly, before last week’s hearing got underway, Cook did this:
Naturally, the race card got thrown into the mix by Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren during the hearing:
Keep in mind that as the “racism” accusations fly, Republicans have expressed much fewer reservations over fellow nominee Philip Jefferson, who is also black.
As if Cook’s “hyper-partisan” activism wasn’t troubling enough, she also recently received the endorsement of New York Times columnist/”economist” Paul Krugman:
Considering Krugman’s notorious history of getting things wrong, as far as I’m concerned his seal of approval alone is enough to disqualify Cook from serving on the board. Just saying.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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