Clay Praises Fed Monetary Policy That is Growing Jobs, Keeping Inflation Low - Chides GOP Critics for Paying Too Much Attention to Chinese, Too Little Attention to Job Creation

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STEVEN ENGELHARDT (314) 504-4029
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: THURSDAY 2.10.11

Clay Praises Fed Monetary Policy That is Growing Jobs, Keeping Inflation Low
Chides GOP Critics for Paying Too Much Attention to Chinese, Too Little Attention to Job Creation

Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D) Missouri, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, praised the Federal Reserve’s efforts to support the economic recovery, generate job growth and help middle class families recovery their economic security.

In his statement before the subcommittee yesterday, Mr. Clay strongly supported the Federal Reserves prudent efforts to infuse the economy with available consumer credit that let to the creation of more than one million jobs in the private sector over the last 19 months.  He also rejected GOP criticism that the Fed’s actions had weakened our currency and upset key economic partners, including the Peoples Republic of China.

Excerpts from Congressman Clay’s opening statement appear below.
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“I never thought that I would see the day when allegedly conservative members of the Republican Party would side with the People’s Republic of China, over the best advice of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System.

The Republican assertion that the Fed’s actions to infuse the money supply, in order to hold down interest rates and lower unemployment, will somehow harm our currency is absolutely ridiculous.

The congressional mandate for the Federal Reserve is really a two-sided coin. The Fed has a mission to both maintain stable prices, and to foster conditions that promote job growth. If we expect this recovery to continue, we need to support both sides of that equation. 

I am thankful that the President of the United States, along with our congressional leadership, and in coordination with the Federal Reserve, acted courageously to prevent a second great depression and to preserve the American middle class.

Over the last 19 months, with the help of the federal reserves’ wise monetary policies; corporate profits have soared; financial markets have stabilized and regained much of the value in equities that was lost and the private sector has created more than one million new jobs.

We still have a long way to go, but that is more new job creation than during the entire two terms of the Bush Administration. We see real growth and recovery in almost every sector of the economy, in part, because of the fed’s actions.

Manufacturing is up, orders for durable goods are up, and car sales are better than expected, which is why we cannot let up now.

There is no doubt that the Fed’s prudent actions to carefully expand the money supply were appropriate and they are helping put Americans back to work.

I’m not concerned about what the Chinese, the Brazilians or the Europeans think about our monetary policy.  Especially when some of those who are complaining the loudest are guilty of manipulating their own currency to hamper American exports, which costs jobs here at home.

The current monetary policy supports job creation here in America.

Here in Congress, we have no higher priority.”