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September 18, 2012 at 08:15 AM
In the war of words in the run-up to the election and QE3, Dallas regional Fed president Richard Fisher says Congress, and not Ben Bernanke, is to blame for U.S. fiscal woes.
Fisher, known for his blunt and often revealing comments that lift the veil on the once-secretive Fed, told CNBC on Tuesday that the Federal Reserve has done its part to jumpstart the U.S. economy but a lack of action by Congress has prevented a recovery.
Speaking just a few days after the central bank took the “unprecedented” step of declaring an open-ended quantitative easing initiative, Fisher said he objected to the program but understands why the Federal Open Market Committee acted as it did, according to the network.
As CNBC notes, Fisher is a nonvoting FOMC member who has been critical of previous QE programs.
“The efficacy of this program is where we disagree. There are costs and benefits. I argue more on the cost side, others argue on the benefits side,” Fisher said on the “Squawk Box” program. “A decision was taken. But instead of hammering the Federal Reserve, point your fingers at Congress.”
Specifically, Fisher said business owners are plagued with questions of “what are my taxes going to be, what kind of spending patterns are going to come out of the federal government, how do I deal with this explosion of regulatory morass that we have come out of Washington?”
