Photo: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
PresidentJoe Biden’s pick to lead theOffice of the Comptroller of the Currency— an independent bureau within the Treasury that oversees the national banking system — defended herself to members of the Senate Banking Committee who questioned whether she’s more aligned with communism than free-market capitalism.
“I’m not a communist,” Saule Omarova, aCornell University law professorwho was born in Soviet Kazakhstan and studied in Moscow, said during Thursday’s confirmation hearing. “I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born.”
“I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade,” he said.
Omarova explained that membership in the Leninist Communist Young Union of the Russian Federation had been compulsory for young people when she was growing up in the former Soviet republic.
Sen. John Kennedy.JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
She also said she had very little academic freedom when asked about writing a thesis on Karl Marx’s economic analysis as an undergrad at Moscow State University more than 40 years ago. The thesis, she said, waswritten in Russian on a typewriterand she didn’t bring it with her when she emigrated to the U.S. in 1991.
Her more recent academic papers were also brought up during the questioning with Republicans suggesting that her opinions show a willingness to recreate the country’s consumer banking system, allow fossil fuel companies to go bankrupt and to dictate private investment decisions.
“She wants to nationalize the banking system, put in place price controls, create a command-and-control economy where the government allocates resources explicitly, instead of free men and women making their own decisions about the goods and services they want to buy and sell in an open market,” Sen. Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the panel, said,according toThe Hill. “These are exactly the kind of socialist ideas that have failed everywhere in the world they’ve been tried.”
Omarova defended her writings as merely “academic debate” over the evolution of the country’s financial systems and that said she doesn’t necessarily endorse every topic she’s written about.
In heropening statement, Omarova spoke about growing up in Kazakhstan as an ethnic minority “in an all-women household, under a totalitarian regime presiding over a failing economy.”
Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
She added that her pursuit of an education was “an act of defying political oppression and injustice.”
“I studied hard, got into the best university I could, and was ultimately able to fulfill my dream of coming to America – the land of opportunity and freedom,” she said.
If confirmed, Omarova would be the first woman to hold the position,NPR reports.
Sen.Elizabeth Warrendefended the nominee while also criticizing Republicans for conducting a “vicious smear campaign” on behalf of the banking industry which has “declared war” on Omarova for her “willingness to enforce the law to keep our system safe and that you may cut into big bank profit.”
“Are you a capitalist who believes in free markets?” Warren asked.
“Yes I am,” Omarova responded.
source: people.com
