Bruce Bartlett begs Bernanke to take further action:
With fiscal stimulus off the table and Republicans gambling that continued economic stagnation will hurt Democrats more than them, the Federal Reserve is the only institution with the freedom of action and power to stimulate growth. But it is constrained by conservatives who charge that it is fostering inflation whenever it tries to provide monetary stimulus. The fact that conservatives have consistently been wrong about this for the last three years has done nothing to diminish their confidence. They are like the French Bourbons, who learned nothing and forgot nothing.
Richard Posner, on the other hand, believes we can't afford to devalue the dollar:
Greece cannot devalue its currency because it doesn’t have its own currency; in that respect it’s like a U.S. state. The U.S. has the capability of devaluing its currency simply by selling dollars abroad, but would be reluctant to devalue substantially because the dollar is the major international reserve currency (the currency used in international transactions between companies that don’t trust their local currencies), which creates a large demand by foreign central banks for U.S. dollars even when those dollars don’t buy U.S. goods, and so is a source of wealth for the United States, in part because dollars cost nothing to produce. Its status as the major international reserve currency would be imperiled if its value fluctuated as much as local currencies in many countries do.
The Dish 