the dallas fed president richard fisher said of the easy money policy during the most recent housing boom rates held too low for too long during the previous fed regime were an accomplice to the reckless behavior. now i remember the economist the pritedish magazine arguing at the time when we lowered the fed funds rate to what effectively was below inflation. that we were going to face a boom a bubble in the housing market and they also argued that because europe would have to follow suit to be competitive it was going to cause a bub there will as well and year after year after year that rate was held that low and so i would just ask you given the fed's track record what assurances do we have that the fed will be any more vigilant when the next bubble begins to form? is it even possible to take away the punchbowl as they say just as the party is getting started? >> congressman i don't want to rehash history i think there's lite of conventional wisdom out there about the earlier episode and i think when we at the fed we published a paper looking at the evidence and i think it is much

in texas, richard fisher, the president of the dallas federal reserve bank, said -- "the provision in the bill would leave the dallas federal jurisdiction -- federal reserve jurisdiction with only one or two bank holding companies, down from 36 member banks or or $74 billion in assets that he now has supervisory authority over. the fed should know the needs and the economic conditions throughout the country, not just new york and washington, d.c." it is precisely the ability to foster bottom-up growth through small businesses that sets community banks apart from other financial institutions. unlike the big financial institutions, we see in the headlines bailouts and bonuses, community banks don't have a systemic risk to our financial system, and they are not identified as primary contributors to our latest crisis. however, community banks would soon be subjected to a considerable amount of new costs and regulatory burdens as a result of this legislation. community banks are already regulated. they are well regulated. adding additional layers of federal bureaucracy with limitless autho

the federal reserve bank of dallas which is headed by richard fisher who came to see me last week.he said i would go from regulating about $70 billion in bank assets with all the community bank members that we have in the dallas regional fed to three, three. so is the fed going to listen in washington when they are making the monetary policy to the kansas city fed chief who completely agrees that we need to keep the access of state and community banks to the fed, for their information as well as the level playing field, so that will be my amendment. community banks did not cause the financial meltdown. in fact, they provided lending and depository services to families and small businesses across texas and across our country, even in the hard times. they were mostly the ones that helped the small businesses get their inventory loans and the help if they -- help that they needed for liquidity. now, a lot of people that i talked to in my home state that i visited in the small businesses and communities felt like nobody was lending, but the big banks certainly weren't. so the community

louis, thomas honig, the president of the fed in kansas city, and richard fisher, the president of the fed in dallas, texas. and they are all in general agreement that we have got to start breaking up these large financial institutions. mr. president, senator dorgan made this point, and i want to make it again, and that is that during the bailout, the fed decided that it was going to lend out trillions of dollars in zero or almost zero interest loans. and when chairman bernanke came before the budget committee on which i serve, i asked him what i thought was a pretty simple and straightforward question, and that is, mr. chairman, can you tell me and the american people who received these loans? i mean, we're talking about trillions of dollars in loans. i don't think it's too much to ask who received the loans, what the terms were of those loans. well, mr. bernanke disagreed, and i offered an amendment that day that begins to bring transparency to the fed, and that amendment is called the federal reserve sunshine act, and i am happy to say, mr. president, that it has 32 cosponsors. inte