On the recordMay 11, 2010
On February 24, 2010--just 3 months ago-- Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke told Congress that ``We have no plans whatsoever to be involved in any foreign bailouts or anything of that sort.'' Now, Mr. Bernanke has changed his own policy statement by agreeing to revive a Fed emergency lending program that will loan American taxpayer dollars to foreign central banks so they can in turn lend this money out to smaller foreign banks, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on May 10 of this year. This decision comes in the wake of the European Union's agreement with the International Monetary Fund to create a $1 trillion bailout package for the EU in order to deal with that region's ensuing fiscal crisis. The IMF, which is also funded by American taxpayer dollars, will be contributing over =250 million (euro) or $317 million to this overseas bailout in addition to the Fed's dollar-swap loan program. The question, Mr. Speaker, is, why did Mr. Bernanke change his policy? Why are American taxpayers now helping to bail out European countries?
