The decision by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari to dismiss inflation concerns while engaging his bank in wholly inappropriate political activism is not looking better with time. As inflation continues to soar, Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), ranking member on the Senate banking committee, sends a letter this week to Mr. Kashkari:
I write regarding the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’s (Minneapolis Fed) active and political lobbying efforts to change Minnesota’s constitution on K-12 education policy. These political lobbying efforts by you and other Minneapolis Fed officials, which the board of the Minneapolis Fed has shockingly endorsed, are well beyond the Federal Reserve’s mandate, violate Federal Reserve Bank policies, constitute a misuse of Minneapolis Fed resources, and ultimately undermine the Federal Reserve’s independence and credibility.
For more than two years, you have been improperly using your position as president of the Minneapolis Fed and Minneapolis Fed resources to aggressively lobby Minnesotans to support the Page Amendment, an amendment to the Minnesota constitution that you helped develop and would create a new “fundamental right to a quality public education.”
This amendment is highly political, as it wades into an ongoing debate about whether government-run school systems are preferable to parental choice in education. It is also controversial because it could be used by liberals to challenge education spending levels in court and give activist judges grounds for overriding levels set by the state’s legislature, which is elected by and accountable to voters.
Nearly a year ago, this column wrote:
