Bernanke Says Fed Can Take on Supercop Role

CNBC
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday fended off congressional skepticism about expanding the Fed’s duties to police big financial companies given the central bank’s failure to catch problems that led to the financial crisis.

Bernanke also faced some grilling from the House Financial Services Committee about taxpayer bailouts of financial companies, slow moving efforts to curb home foreclosures and concerns about the Fed’s track record in protecting consumers from abusive practices from lenders, credit card companies and other financial service providers.

“The Fed has made some big mistakes,” said the panel’s highest-ranking Republican, Spencer Bachus of Alabama. Letting the Fed become the financial supercop would be “just inviting a false sense of security” that would be shattered at taxpayers’ expense, he warned.

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