Chuck Grassley: “I offer this advice to my colleagues on this amendment offered by my colleague from our State of Iowa, Senator Harkin.…”

“I offer this advice to my colleagues on this amendment offered by my colleague from our State of Iowa, Senator Harkin. While we are all for lower interest rates, I think this amendment should be opposed because of the traditional separation of the Federal Reserve from the political process. What we generally speak of is the independence of the Federal Reserve System. For short, we all speak of the independence of the Fed. This country has a very long history of protecting the work of the Federal Reserve from political manipulation. Since the 1930s, Congress has gently refrained from passing legislation in an attempt to influence monetary policy.”