The bottom line: There is a gun to the head of the American economy. We can continue these easy-money policies that cause inflation, enable excessive government spending, and engineer more bubble-fueled financial crisis, or we can allow interest rates to rise, which would surely plunge the economy back into recession.

Either way, our current course is not sustainable. This is why conservatives need to hammer this issue out. My vote comes down on the side of upholding this country’s founding values—limited government, and free enterprise. That doesn’t mean we trash the Fed system altogether, but it does mean that we seriously rethink its role in America’s economy.

It baffles me that we can all agree placing price controls on bananas is wrong, inefficient, and causes adverse side-effects, but we have never questioned why it is a good thing for the Fed to place price controls on money. One thing is for certain. As a student of history, I know you can’t print your way to prosperity. It seems we are trying to do that just now.