On the recordMay 11, 2010
we are restoring section 605 of the underlying bill. But I just think it is so important we take this action. Senator Klobuchar made a great statement about what would happen with the Minnesota Fed going down to one bank. How are they going to have the input to talk to the Federal Reserve Board about monetary policy if their supervision is over one bank? In fact, I understood they might be closing some of the local offices of the Fed because there will be nothing to supervise, and there will be no input, there will be no knowledge of what is going on in some of the communities. I think the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is in much the same situation. It would also go down to one from about over 400. I will get the numbers exactly by tomorrow. But that is just going to make a huge difference in the knowledge base of our Federal Reserve Board. It would be unthinkable to have monetary policy made without the input from all of our States that the regional banks give at this time. The regional banks do a great job. I have dealt with many of the regional banks. They have great influence on monetary policy. The presidents of the regional banks rotate in the Open Market Committee that makes our Fed decisions, and it is a very good system. It was carefully put together so it would be a monetary system that represents our whole country. That is probably one of the reasons why our economy has remained so stable through the years since the Federal Reserve was created.
