Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke trekked to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to caution Senate lawmakers on the economic dangers of the looming “fiscal cliff,” the nearly $600 billion in planned spending cuts and tax hikes that will bite at the start of next year unless lawmakers act.
Bernanke, who has publicly warned that dawdling by lawmakers was putting the U.S. economy in peril, spoke to members of the Senate Finance Committee for about an hour behind closed doors in a meeting requested by the panel chairman, Democrat Max Baucus.
“I believe strongly that nothing of consequence is ever solved when somebody tries to do something alone. You got to work together. My whole goal here is to get senators working together and it is happening,” Baucus said after the meeting.
Bernanke declined to comment.
Last week, the Fed announced a new, open-ended round of bond buying and pledged to hold short-term interest rates at rock- bottom levels longer than previously stated in an effort to shore up the lackluster U.S. economic recovery.
Bernanke also said then that the Fed could not solve the economy’s problems alone.
CONTINUED at Yahoo News.
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