[StBernard] Chairman Frank Statement on Republican Attacks on Fed Efforts to Boost U.S. Economy

[Westley Annis]

Chairman Frank Statement on Republican Attacks on Fed Efforts to Boost U.S.
Economy

 

Washington, D.C. - House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank
(D-MA) issued the following statement today regarding Republican attacks on
efforts by the Federal Reserve to use well-understood monetary policy tools
in order to help boost the U.S. economy:

 

"I was not surprised at the extreme hypocrisy of the Central Bank of China
insisting that America - apparently alone among nations - has an obligation
to subordinate its own legitimate economic needs to international currency
movements, nor was I surprised that other central banks, including
Germany's, joined China.  

 

"What did disappoint me was to see conservative economists, high-ranking
officials of previous Republican administrations, and Republican
Congressional leaders share the attack by these foreign banks not simply on
the substance of the Federal Reserve's proposal, but on the very notion that
America has a right to give a primary focus to our own economic need for
growth at this time.

 

"Debating American economic policy is one thing; joining in a broad attack
by foreign central banks, who insist that America somehow must subordinate
our own legitimate economic needs to their currency requirements, is quite
another. But that is essentially what the Reagan-Bush-Bush economists have
asserted in their letter to Chairman Bernanke when they say that 'The Fed's
purchase program has also met broad opposition from other central banks and
we share their concerns that quantitative easing by the Fed is neither
warranted nor helpful in addressing either U.S. or global economic
problems.'"

 

Note: Republican Congressional leaders issued their attack on the Fed in a
letter sent last week to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The former
Republican administration officials and other prominent conservatives sent a
separate letter to Bernanke last week.

 

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