House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) told Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a hearihg Wednesday that his power to move markets is “not healthy” for the U.S. economy, while Bernanke blamed inaction in Congress for the nation’s long-term economic woes.”The market’s recent extreme volatility resulting from the offhanded comments of one individual, our witness today, is not healthy for an economy,” Hensarling said in his opening statement during the Fed chairman’s semiannual Monetary Policy Report on the state of the nation’s economy.
Hensarling also accused the Fed chairman of being an enabler of President Obama’s failed fiscal policies. “The Federal Reserve has regrettably, in many ways, enabled this failed economic policy through a program of risky and unprecedented asset purchases and has swollen its balance sheet to more than $3 trillion.” Read more.