On the recordNovember 18, 2015
I do rise in opposition to the amendment. The gentleman has clearly stated he doesn't like the underlying bill, so his amendment simply guts the underlying bill and allows the Fed to opt out of the underlying bill. I have listened carefully to the gentleman's interest and what he recited about the Taylor rule, but again I would encourage him to read the bill because he would then know, as I suspect that he does, that the Federal Reserve under the FORM Act is not mandated to follow the Taylor rule. It is simply a comparison. So, if the Taylor rule is as bad as the gentleman claims it will be, then the FORM Act will reveal that to all the world. All the world will know this. However, I think if we study economic history carefully, what we will discover is that, when the Fed used a more predictable, rules-based monetary policy to where investors and businesses actually had some idea of what interest rates would be, the economy would flourish, as it did during the great moderation. So again, the FORM Act allows the Fed to use any monetary policy it wishes, to change the policy, to deviate from the policy, but it has to communicate that to the rest. That is essentially what the FORM Act says. It is about communication. It doesn't tell them how to conduct the policy. It does tell them how to communicate the policy to the American people, who deserve to know this from the single most important economic agency of government today.
