Federal Reserve Open Market Committee Chairman Ben Bernanke's told the congressional Joint Economic Committee of Congress October 4 that he has the remedy for the ailing economic recovery he admits is "close to faltering": More of the same deficit spending, monetary stimulus, and work to re-inflate the housing bubble.
Bernanke acknowledged to Congress that deficit spending is out of control. "One crucial objective is to achieve long-run fiscal sustainability. The federal budget is clearly not on a sustainable path at present," he told members of the House-Senate joint committee. The Fed Chairman termed the work of Congress' other joint House-Senate "Super-Congress" committee, charged with cutting some $1.5 trillion of the estimated $8-9 trillion in expected deficits over the next 10 years, "a substantial step; however, more will be needed to achieve fiscal sustainability.... In sum, the nation faces difficult and fundamental fiscal choices, which cannot be safely or responsibly postponed."
By those remarks, Bernanke didn't mean that federal, state, and local governments should balance their budgets and stop using deficit spending to continue their stranglehold on the credit markets.
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Photo of Ben Bernanke: AP Images
