Politics -- I get it. Really. You say what you’ve got to say to score points with voters.

But when it comes to getting the economy up and running again, does it really help to pretend that you’ve never attended a single economics class or that you have no clue about how things actually work?

I’m thinking about the responses from Republicans to news that the Federal Reserve will step up its economic-stimulus efforts with a plan to buy $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities.

The idea is that this will stabilize the housing market, which virtually all economists agree is key to helping the overall economy regain its footing.


The GOP, however, is spinning this as an “ineffective” move that only underlines what a crappy job President Obama has been doing.

“The Federal Reserve’s announcement of a third round of quantitative easing is further confirmation that President Obama’s policies have not worked,” says Lanhee Chen, policy director for the campaign of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. “We should be creating wealth, not printing dollars.”

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee upped the ante by saying the Fed’s actions were “beginning to do serious damage to the Fed as an institution.”

“Open-ended purchases of mortgage-backed securities will politicize the Fed and add substantially to its balance-sheet risks, but it will not help our economy’s long-term growth prospects,” he says.


Added Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas: “It’s time for the Fed to stop. Chairman [Ben S.] Bernanke should look President Obama and Congress in the eye and tell them the Fed has done all it can to boost the economy -- and perhaps too much.”

Um, no. The Fed is like a guy with a garden hose trying to save a burning house. It’s doing everything it can think of to turn things around.

In any case, it’s not as though the Republicans seem to have any better idea how to get things moving again, unless you count more and more tax cuts as a cure-all.

Play your politics, boys. But don’t stand in the way of the grown-ups.