Today marks an historic day for the Federal Reserve, as it is the first time ever that a Fed Chairman will hold a post-meeting news conference. This publication had to go to print before Mr. Bernanke took the podium, so I am not able to comment on the substance of what the Fed Chairman said. However, if I were present at this news conference, I would ask Mr. Bernanke the following philosophic question:

“Why does the government have to be so involved in both monetary policy and the economy in the first place?”

I doubt the Washington press corps and the big financial news correspondents will bring up this issue. Rather, they’ll concentrate on the minutia of recent Fed policy -- and that’s probably a good thing. Yet, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the Fed and the government at large really don’t have the Constitutional authority to be so involved in our economic lives.

Unfortunately, until the government really starts to butt out of our economic lives in a significant way, we always are going to be subject to the will of the politicians and their omnipresent priority to get reelected.