Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), called during a March 2021 virtual conference to eliminate all private bank accounts and deposits.
Omarova spoke at the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project’s “Law & Political Economy: Democracy Beyond Neoliberalism” conference in March.
Omarova discussed one of her papers, “The People’s Ledger How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” which would help “redesign” the financial system and make the economy “more equitable for everyone.”
She said it would change the “private-public power balance” and democratize finance to a more systemic level.
During her explanation of her paper, she said that the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, can only use “indirect levers” to “induce private banks to increase their lending.”
Her paper calls for eliminating all banks and transferring all bank deposits to “FedAccounts” at the Federal Reserve.
During her conference speech, she said, “There will be no more private bank accounts, and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the Fed”:
Omarova said her proposal would give the Fed more “proactive” monetary policy tools, such as “helicopter money.” She also pondered how the Federal Reserve could “take money” from Americans during an inflationary environment.
When talking about FedAccounts, the former senior government official said, “The Democratic Party over the last couple of administrations, they want the government to essentially take over a lot of financial functions from banks.”
Omarova’s radical views led to 21 state financial officers calling for Biden to withdraw Omarova’s nomination for the U.S. comptroller:
The LPE serves as a platform to discuss:
the role of law and legal discourse in the creation and maintenance of capitalism and in mediating tensions between capitalist order and democratic self-rule. Scholars in our network work to understand the relationship between market supremacy and racial, gender, and economic injustice; to articulate the relationship between capitalism and devaluation of social and ecological reproduction; and to explore the distinctive ways that law gives shape to and legitimates neoliberal capitalism, ranging from dynamics of financialization to the relation between the carceral state and capitalism. We also seek to offer concrete legal reforms designed to move beyond neoliberalism and toward a genuinely responsive, egalitarian democracy, with critical attention to the need for power and movement-building as part of any such transformation. [Emphasis added]
Republicans have already moved to oppose Omarova’s nomination.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said Omarova’s support of Communist ideals” disqualifies her for the position.
“Republicans will overwhelmingly oppose this self-described radical,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) told Axios.
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