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.

Federal Reserve

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Fed to Continue Quantitative Easing

There’s still no end in sight for the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program — known as quantitative easing — after the central bank met this week and decided to continue buying $85 billion in bonds each month.

In a statement released after the conclusion of its policy meeting, the Fed pointed to fiscal policy (aka government spending cuts, the shutdown and debt ceiling debate) as “restraining economic growth.”

While the Fed continued to characterize the overall economy as expanding at a “moderate pace” — the same as at its prior meeting — it did downgrade its assessment of the housing market slightly.

“The housing sector slowed somewhat in recent months,” the statement said.

The central bank has been buying $85 billion in bonds every month since September 2012, and has said it will continue to do so until the job market improves “substantially.” The program is now nearing $1 trillion in total, yet that goal remains elusive.

Sure, the unemployment rate, at 7.2 percent is slightly lower than it was, but so too is the country’s labor participation rate. Only 63 percent of Americans ages 16 and over either have a job or are looking for one — the lowest level since 1978.

Meanwhile, hiring is stuck in slow motion, averaging 185,000 new jobs added in each of the last 12 months. Overall, not much has changed in the job market since last year.

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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.