Political Quotes

“something came to my attention today that I haven't seen before. Actually, it is a blog which was apparently written by Ben Bernanke, the immediate past Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He wrote it for the Brookings Institute, and he talked about one of the pay-fors for the transportation bill for which we will be sending conferees to discuss later today. As my colleagues may recall, the House passed a 6-year authorization bill for transportation--roads, highways, bridges, and transit--with funding for 3 years. When we sent our legislation over to the House, they came up with some new pay-fors. Frankly, it is not user fees, it is not even like pension smoothing, it is not like stealing TSA fees or Custom fees, but something new. They found money--about $40 to $50 billion--in the Federal Reserve and said: Why don't we use that for transportation spending? Interestingly enough, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve has written about this issue, and it has been editorialized in today's Washington Post, among others. I will read a sentence or two out of Chairman Bernanke's comments, if I may, talking about the new pay-for, where we take money from the Federal Reserve and use it for transportation purposes. Here is what Chairman Bernanke says: More substantively--and this is what I want to focus on in the post-- ``paying'' for highway spending with Fed capital is not paying for it at all in any economically meaningful sense.…”