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Saule Omarova, President Biden's pick for Comptroller of the Currency, had a rough day at today's Senate Banking Panel. The Cornell law professor was confronted time and again with her own statements, forcing her to disavow them or deny their relevancy to the question of whether she should be confirmed to the position of one of America's most influential financial regulators.
The basic argument for overlooking her academic work is straight out of the Wizard of Oz. She's telling us to pay no attention to that little man behind the curtain. She says she took the positions she took as a sort of intellectual exercise and that her critics are taking her statements out of context. But even those who have read the entirety of her paper on "The People's Ledger" cannot explain what context makes advocating for forcibly transferring all bank accounts to the Fed less frightening. Recall that just giving the IRS more information about our bank accounts recently triggered major political backlash. Imagine moving the actual bank accounts into government control.
Democrats have tried to paint all criticism of the Soviet Union-born Omarova as xenophobic red-baiting. So it was entertaining to watch Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) lean into that by beginning his questions asking about her participation in a group called the Young Communists. After being scolded by Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for stepping into forbidden territory, Kennedy returned to the scene of the thought crime and asked whether he should be calling Omarova "professor or comrade."
The Republican senators on the panel pointed out that despite Omarova's protests that she is a capitalist who believes community banks play an important role, her academic work calls for centralization of the American markets into a command-and-control economy. None of her answers convincingly put to rest concerns over her stance.
The political philosopher Leo Strauss used to insist it that it is safer to understand the low in the light of the high than the other way around. What that meant was that ideas and arguments should be judged in their highest form rather than just based on what their proponents could accomplish. What someone was aiming at mattered and could tell us what to think about what they actually managed to get done. What Omarova is aiming at is rightfully unwelcome by the right side of the U.S. Senate.
Fortunately, it may also be unwelcome across the aisle. The Democrats will need unanimity in their caucus to confirm Omarova, and that remains in doubt. Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Mark Warner (D-VA) challenged Omarova on her positions on past banking reforms, including legislation they had sponsored. Tester also pushed her on a remark made earlier this year in which she said she hoped for the bankruptcy of small oil-and-gas companies so that tackling climate change would be easier.
Omarova's implausible response was that she said exactly the opposite of what she meant. She really just wants to help those small fossil fuel companies restructure so that their employees don't lose their jobs. Just like she favors community banks, you see. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Don't believe your lying eyes.
– Alex Marlow & John Carney
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