Fieler: How to Challenge Yellen--and Big Government

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If today's Republicans are going to roll back President Obama's massive expansion of government, they will need the muscle of a bond market free from the Federal Reserve's manipulation. History suggests that only the prospect of higher and increasingly painful financing costs chastens committed big spenders. A liberated, and consequently less docile, bond market would not only restrain Washington's profligacy, it would also free the Republican Party to refocus on the big ideas and positive vision that made it a global force in the 1980s.

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Even with tapering under way and the end of quantitative easing on the horizon, a truly free bond market is not yet in the offing. So long as a threat of the Federal Reserve's bond buying looms, even rising bond yields are unlikely to produce discipline in Washington. Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, has masterfully demonstrated the power the Fed would have merely waiting in the wings. By standing at the ready to buy government bonds if they decline, Mr. Draghi tamed Europe's bond markets, driving Italian 10-year yields down to 4%, from 7%, as Italian debt-to-GDP, currently at 127%, continued its unsustainable climb.

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Ms. Yellen's vigorous support for quantitative easing gives Republicans a perfect opportunity to oppose the unhealthy alliance between big government and the Federal Reserve. Republican senators should vote against her confirmation, or, better still, make their support for her conditional upon the passage of a resolution capping the growth of the Federal Reserve's already bloated balance sheet.