Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 22, 2021
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” This is a favorite quote from Abraham Lincoln. This is aptly applicable regarding Joe Biden nominating Saule Omarova to become the Comptroller of the Currency. While many have accused the Biden administration of creeping toward socialism, such an appointment demonstrates the sprint toward socialism.
“The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is an independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The OCC charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.
We ensure that the banks we supervise operate in a safe and sound manner, provide fair access to financial services, treat customers fairly, and comply with applicable laws and regulations. The OCC received no appropriations from Congress.” (occ.treas.gov)
This is a very important position to which Omarova has been nominated and Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee are finding serious pause to approve this nominee based upon her own words. Right out of the gate it should be known that Omarova, currently a law professor at Cornell University, is a native of Kazakhstan while it still fell under the control of the then Soviet Union. She served at one time as an advisor in the Treasury Department, and has solid academic bona fides. Omarova earned her B.A. at Moscow State University, graduating in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship prior to immigrating to the United States in 1991. Once in the U.S. Omarova earned both her M.A. and Pd.D. at the University of Wisconsin, and her J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
While at Moscow State, Omarova wrote her thesis entitled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital.” When questioned about her thesis, she claimed to have forgotten about it ever since, yet it remained on her resume through 2017, and testified before the Banking Committee that she is unable to locate the document.
During Senator John Kennedy’s (R-LA) questioning of Omarova on Thursday, November 18, he pointed out that she joined a Marxist Facebook group discussing socialist and anti-capitalist views. He noted that Omarova, in a Canadian documentary, called the financial services industry, “a quintessential asshole industry.” Kennedy indicated Omarova wrote a paper calling for the federal government to set wages, food, and gas prices.
In her 2020 paper “The Climate Case for National Divestment Authority,” Omarova supported having the federal government bankrupt the gas and oil industry in an effort to tackle climate change, said Kennedy. Starve them at their source of capital; if they go bankrupt, that would be a good thing, according to Omarova
“You have the right to believe every one of these things, you do,” said Kennedy to Omarova. “I don’t mean you any disrespect - I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade,” he concluded.
Continuing with the theme of the gas and oil industry, Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) asked Omarova if higher gas prices are a good or bad thing for America. Saying she wasn’t sure, clearly Omarova had difficulty answering the question, said Hagerty. The Senator then read a direct quote from Omarova. “A lot of the smaller players in coal and oil and gas ought to probably go bankrupt in short order - at least we want them to go bankrupt - if we want to tackle climate change.”
Biden already destroyed American energy independence, continued Hagerty, adding that Omarova supported Operation Choke Point. This is a program where government officials would intimidate banks to stop lending to lawful American businesses that Democrats didn’t like. Called Operation Choke Point because the government abused its authority to try to choke off the financial oxygen from those targeted lawful American businesses.
Millions of Americans’ livelihoods depend upon employment within the gas and oil industry, while gas prices continue soaring, and although it’s not yet winter, the Biden administration wants to further cut gas and oil.
Calling for the need to abolish bank accounts in favor of mandatory accounts established with the Federal Reserve, where the Fed will have access to our personal data, Omarova wrote a 70 page article for the October 2021 issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Entitled “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” it becomes obvious Omarova’s goals include federalizing the American people’s personal bank accounts. Then, our own money will be used to finance the economy at will, not just under the IRS rules.
“It offers a blueprint for a comprehensive restructuring of the central bank balance sheet as the basis for redesigning the core architecture of modern finance. Focusing on the U.S. Federal Reserve System (“the Fed”), the Article outlines a series of structural reforms that would radically redefine the role of a central bank as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a democratic economy—the People’s Ledger.” Omarova’s words from the preamble summary of her article.
And dangerous words at that, especially when coupled with the following from the introduction of her article. “Americans are demanding a greater say in the distribution and use of financial resources.” Let that swirl around “the little grey cells,” as fictional detective Hercule Poirot often remarked. The distribution and use of financial resources - sure smacks of socialism at least, communism at worst. On what Omarova bases this assertion is unstated, but only socialist leaning indoctrinated students and those of that generation who clearly never properly learned the basics of economics would support such a radical notion. Federalizing American bank accounts to be controlled by the Fed? What could possibly go wrong? See also the American public education system and the United States Postal Service.
In her support of Omarova’s nomination, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called her an independent voice while referring to the banking industry as “their Republican buddies.” Warren should do her due diligence and learn how the Democrats raked in a small fortune from the banking industry in campaign contributions.
Omarova is deeply critical of the free enterprise system, privately allocating capital and expressing support of government allocation of capital. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) demonstrated Omarova’s support of government allocation of capital. “We need to correct the misallocation of money and credit in the U.S. economy, and we need to correct it on a systemic level…. We need to make sure banks channel money and financial resources precisely where, as the nation, as a community really need it to go,” read Toomey from a transcript of a podcast in which Omarova was a participant in June of this year.
Toomey read more of Omarova back to her during the Senate Banking Committee hearing. “We need to think about the role of the federal government vis a vis private business. It’s a team sport and in a team sport we all win or we all lose under the same circumstances, and ya know, every team requires a captain, and so the federal government should step into that role and should become the captain in terms of allocation of resources. And I think that the government needs to step into private market operations. Right? In order to align the incentives of individual corporations with the interest of the public.” Toomey noted reading this long quote in order to provide context.
Far too often throughout the hearing Omarova would either deny what the real meaning of her words meant, or claim they were being taken out of context. Every quote? Every comment? Every 70 page article? Simply not plausible. This nominee is simply too dangerous to be installed into such an important position being able to make life altering decisions for millions of Americans.
“You get to decide who gets to open a bank and who doesn’t. You get to decide what kind of loans get to be made, and which ones can’t. You could forbid a bank from a merger. You could forbid a bank from opening new branches. You could create or destroy a whole category of bank charters. You could decide which kinds of loans receive favorable regulatory treatment through the CRA eligibility. And every bank would know that their fate is, to a very large degree, in your hands, and they would know what your views are about the banking industry, about the private allocation of capital. This is what’s so chilling. I think this answers the question of why so many, including community banks, are very, very concerned about where you would take the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,” said Toomey.
Omarova is a Biden nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency with potentially far too great powers and possessing far too dangerous ideas that are anti-democratic, anti-capitalist, and most assuredly strongly socialist. Throughout her hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Omarova spent some of her time suggesting that because she is an immigrant, a woman, and a minority is why she is being challenged so vigorously. Ah, woe is me, they don’t like me, that’s why they won’t let me join their club. No, it’s because her ideas are dangerous, frightening, and most assuredly not right for the United States of America. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said it is the concerns the senators have with Omarova’s extensive written record, and not the “modern day McCarthyism” as Senator Warren said.
Omarova spent most of her time denying the true measure of a career’s worth of words, writings, and publicly spoken beliefs. Is the committee to believe she has turned on a dime to suggest otherwise? The proof is in the details and without question, Omarova should be denied the Comptroller of the Currency post. Call your United States senators and politely tell them to vote against this nominee. This number, 202-224-3121, will reach the United States Senate switchboard - they can forward your call to the correct senator’s office.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
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