Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

Ben Bernanke

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Michele Bachmann – How Can Debt Remain at Same Level for Months?

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Wednesday night said the Treasury Department is lying to Americans about the size of the federal debt since it has not changed significantly for the last few months even though the government continues to borrow.

Bachmann cited a report from this week saying the size of the debt has not changed since mid-May.

“That would be called a lie in our house. That is not acceptable to my husband and I. You don’t lie to us,” Bachmann said on the House floor.

“One thing that the federal government should never do to the people who pay the bills in this country is lie to them. And it seems to me that that’s what this number is. For 56 days they’re pretending that we aren’t adding any debt?”

The report Bachmann cited said the size of the debt has not changed at all for 56 days, and has been stuck on $16.699 trillion, just $25 million short of the debt ceiling.

But according to TreasuryDirect.gov, the debt has hovered around $16.738 trillion since May, and has made small movements around that number each day.

Bachmann said she asked Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke today how the debt can remain still despite continued U.S. government borrowing.

“Even though he’s been the Federal Reserve chair for 10 years, he had no idea how that can happen,” she said. “In fact, he didn’t even know that it had happened.

“Part of the reason that he speculated is that perhaps the Treasury used what they call their ‘extraordinary means’ to be able to deal with the debt ceiling,” she added. Treasury has in fact said it is able to manage the government’s finances through the fall before it will need to exceed the debt ceiling.

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Congressman – Bernanke Power to Move Markets Not Healthy for Economy

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. 

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Fed Warns of Risks From Ending Stimulus

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday said the economy must show signs of sustained improvement before the central bank will curtail its long-running monetary stimulus program.

Bernanke offered no timeline as to when the Fed would begin reducing purchases of mortgage-backed assets, saying any decisions would be based on incoming economic data, with a keen eye on improvements in the labor market.

“We are looking at whether or not we have seen real and sustainable progress in the labor market outlook,” Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday.

“I hope to provide more information going forward, and that we can exit over time in a way that is consistent with our policy objectives,” he said.

The Fed is currently engaged in its third round of “quantitative easing” and intends to buy $85 billion in government and mortgage bonds until there is substantial improvement in the labor market.

Since December, the central bank has said it would hold short-term interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate drops below 6.5 percent — it now stands at 7.5 percent — or inflation climbs above 2 percent. Rates have been near zero since late 2008.

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