[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 194 (Monday, November 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7017-S7018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF JUDY SHELTON

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I start by asking the Presiding Officer to 
wear a mask as he speaks and the people are below him.
  I can't tell you what to do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. I don't wear a mask when I am speaking like 
most Senators. I will put it back on, but I don't need your 
instruction.
  Mr. BROWN. I know you don't need my instruction.
  There clearly isn't much interest in this body in public health. We 
have a President who hasn't shown up at the Coronavirus Task Force in 
months. We have a majority leader who calls us back here to vote on an 
unqualified nominee and, at the same time, to vote for judge after 
judge, exposing all the people who can't say anything. I understand. 
There are people in front of the Presiding Officer and we expose all 
the staff here and the majority leader doesn't seem to care.
  The American people sent a clear message in this election. They voted 
for stability. They rejected an administration that has failed them in 
the middle of a public health crisis and economic crisis. People want a 
government that works for them and is on their side. My colleagues in 
both parties know this.
  I know some of you feel like you have to humor the outgoing 
President, continue to make excuses for him, continue to run from the 
media when they might ask a question about your opinion on the 
President. But you know that Joe Biden won, and you won. Most of you 
won your elections--including the Presiding Officer--fair and square on 
the same ballot. You don't have to play along with the tweets and the 
chaos.
  He threatened the Republican Governor of Ohio today, for instance, 
because the Governor of Ohio--I think he said the term ``President-
Elect Biden,'' and that offended the President. You don't have to play 
along with the tweets and the chaos and the crazy anymore.
  We need to move on. We need to actually deliver for the people who 
voted for us and put their faith in us. The last thing we should be 
doing is granting Trump one last wish--one more opportunity to salt the 
earth on his way out.
  The Federal Reserve is supposed to be a steady, guiding hand, making 
sure our economy actually delivers for the people who make it work. 
They are supposed to worry about the big picture of the economy so 
hard-working families don't have to.
  But Judy Shelton--most of my colleagues know this. I have talked to 
many of them. She believes the opposite. That is why Trump wants one 
last pick for the Federal Reserve, and Senator McConnell and all the 
spineless people in this body continue to give him that last wish.
  Eighty million Americans voted for stability. Shelton promises more 
Trump chaos. I know we have disagreements. We have progressive economic 
ideas and conservative economic ideas. I am fine with disagreements. 
That is what government is about. That is what self-government is 
about.

[[Page S7018]]

  Judy Shelton isn't a conservative. She is way, way off the 
ideological spectrum. For three decades and more than 50 publications, 
Shelton has advocated returning to the gold standard. Let's be clear 
what that means. It would mean abandoning some of the most important 
tools we have to make people's lives better. We can't sabotage our 
economic recovery before it even happens by putting people in charge 
who would drive us backward. You all know that.
  I know you all know that, but you have to do President Trump's 
bidding one last time. If we had followed Shelton's advice earlier, we 
might still be in the great recession. In multiple writings, she said 
she opposes FDIC deposit insurance--the insurance that protects your 
money and mine when we put it in the bank. In other words, she thinks 
that if a bank fails--and we all remember from 2008, at the end of the 
Bush years, banks do, indeed, fail, one after another after another. If 
a bank fails, then she thinks all the families whose savings and 
paychecks are stored in the bank should just lose their money.

  Passing Federal deposit insurance was one of FDR's first acts during 
the Great Depression for a reason. It guaranteed that your money was 
safe in the bank as a bedrock of our modern economy. It is not some 
intellectual exercise; it is real.
  I dare anyone to explain to working families in Georgia or Ohio or 
Florida or Pennsylvania or Colorado or any community that saw banks 
close their doors in the great recession that, as Judy Shelton wrote, 
that the FDIC insurance is ``a hugely distorting factor,'' whatever 
that means.
  Don't take my word for it. People on both sides of the aisle agree 
that she has no business making huge decisions that affect what kinds 
of jobs people can get and the interest rates on their mortgages and 
the power they have to negotiate for higher pay.
  The New York Times, seen by many as pretty progressive, and National 
Review, seen by an equal number as pretty conservative, both oppose 
her, so do conservative thinkers at the American Enterprise Institute. 
They use words like ``dangerous'' and a ``gamble.''
  Over 100 experts--many of whom don't see the economy the way I do, 
who are much more conservative than I--warned against putting her on 
the Fed. Their basic concern is she won't do what is good for workers 
or what is good for the economy. She is a political hack. She is the 
outgoing President's political hack.
  That is why Senator McConnell marches down the aisle, stands at his 
desk, and pushes Judy Shelton--why? Not because his Members want it; 
they don't. Most don't have the guts to stand up to Leader McConnell or 
especially to the President. He is pushing it because President Trump 
has one last request to put his hack on the Federal Reserve.
  The American people had enough of gambling. They made that very 
clear. Now is not the time, in this terrible economy, for fringe 
theories. We are in a public health crisis. We are in an economic 
crisis.
  During her nomination hearing, one of my Republican colleagues asked 
her this question--how she would we get us out of a situation. This is 
last year, keep in mind. How would she get us out of a situation where 
consumer confidence and spending dropped, unemployment jumped from 3.5 
percent to 6.5 percent in a short period of time, and we are in a 
recession--how would she we get out of that?
  Her response was: ``It is hard to imagine that situation.'' Think 
about that: ``It is hard to imagine that situation.''
  Really? That is supposed to be the job of the Federal Reserve. Every 
worker in America imagines it right now. They live through it. Things 
are much worse than that question--3.5 percent to 6.5 percent in a 
short period of time.
  When the pandemic set in, consumer spending plummeted, and the 
unemployment rate shot up from 3.5 percent to 15 percent in April. 
Right now, 11 million people are out of work. Coronavirus cases are 
skyrocketing all over the country.
  The outgoing President has abandoned his job except, of course, 
pushing for a hack at the Federal Reserve. He is not going to 
coronavirus meetings. Senator McConnell doesn't seem to care. The 
Republican majority doesn't seem to care that he is not going to those 
meetings.
  Instead, we are meeting this week to confirm young, far-right judges 
and a hack on the Federal Reserve who a whole lot of former Fed Chairs 
of both parties, that all kinds of Bush economists and economists 
working in Democratic administrations--both sides are saying she is a 
hack. They are saying she shouldn't be on the Federal Reserve. Yet 1, 
2, 3, 4--count them, 49, 50--I don't know how many Republican Senators 
are in line because Trump said to get in line and vote for Judy 
Shelton.
  People have enough to worry about: the health of their loved ones, 
their jobs, their rent, their utility bills. But Shelton is so out of 
touch, she can't imagine so many families live that reality every day.
  Americans shouldn't also have to worry that fringe academics are 
running experiments with our national economy. People want peace of 
mind. They want stability. They want to have confidence that the people 
in charge can handle this crisis so they can get back to their lives.
  You can't say you support working people and want to get back to work 
and get back to their paychecks, while at the same time putting someone 
in a position of authority who has no problem threatening their jobs 
and their savings to push her bizarre, intellectual, academic agenda.
  In fact, at a time when unemployed Americans would love to be able to 
safely go to any job, Judy Shelton didn't even show up for her last 
job. That is not someone who has empathy.
  My colleagues knows she has no business on our central bank, just 
like you know Trump lost the election. I know you can't really say 
that. You can't say Trump lost the election. You can't say President-
Elect Joe Biden because if you do, as the Governor of Ohio did, 
President Trump will threaten you as he did this morning.
  I know most of you don't even think you can vote against a hack that 
you didn't want to support before the election now that the election is 
over. Most of you said you are going to vote for her. I don't 
understand that. Americans have had enough of people who treat 
governing like a game.
  We need to rise to meet this moment. We need to restore people's 
faith in their government. Judy Shelton will make that harder. We can't 
allow Trump to keep sabotaging our government and our economy by 
creating chaos wherever he can, especially after voters decisively 
rejected him by more than 5 million votes--an electoral college 
landslide and 5 million more votes to President-Elect Biden than 
President Trump.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing Judy Shelton's 
nomination.
  I yield the floor.

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