Jury will come to order. Senator brown has been delayed a bit but im going to go ahead because as i think most people realize we had to readjust the time of the hearing to accommodate the fact that both have been called on the floor at 1030. That means senators will really need to stick to their five minutes and even then we may not get through for everyone and i apologize. I will stick around for 15 or 20 minutes into the first boat so we can go as long as we possibly can. I will wave my questions. I wont waive my introductory misstatement and i will start with that right now. Welcome, chairman powell today the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell update the command Monetary Policy development in the state of the us economy. Us economy continues to expand in 2019 exceeding 2 growth for the Third Straight year as the American People enjoyed to the longest continued economic expansion in american history. The labor market is strong with the labor force at an alltime high of 164 million people. The most recent jobs report shows employers added 225,000 jobs in january alone with the Unemployment Rate at 3. 6 remaining near a halfcentury lowlo. Wages also grew in 3. 1 from your earlier and this is important, making it 18 consecutive months pay has grown and it annualized pace of 3 or more. Americans view on their personal financial situation is optimistic according to gallup trendse. Nearly six in 10 americans or 59 say they are better off financially than a year ago, up from a 50 last year. In 2017 rightsizing regulations including under the Economic Growth regulatory relief and Consumer Protection act in 2018 have undoubtedly helped fuel the Strong Economy and labor market. Americans are set to benefit more when considering the affects of the usmc eight in phase one trade deal with china. Despite the substantial progress theres factors that may have an impact on Economic Activity and our Financial Markets that need to be better understood including the feds decisionty to maintain a larger Balance Sheet future including its recent decision to purchase treasury bills in response to volatility in shortterm borrowing rates. Feds future plan to maintain stability in shortterm borrowing rates including potential structural market base and address of a transition away from step should be taken to ensure smooth transition and curb risk to businesses and Financial Markets. Potential impact of the coronavirus on Global Commerce and growth. The fed has taken a number of supervisory and regulatory actions that merit attention. The fed and other financial agencies proposed amendment to the rule to improve streamlining clarified that portion of the rule. That proposal builds on the agency simplification of the rule in 2019, standing to improve market liquidity improve diverse sources of capital for businesses while struck in the appropriate balance was safety and soundness. Many Banking Committee republicans and i have raised concerns in the past with Agency Supervisory and an examination process including the use of the rules. In january, fed vice chairman offered a roadmap to foster transparency, count ability of fairness in big supervision including tailoring the supervisory framework to better live the categories developed under the fed domestic and foreign Bank Tailoring rulesio, putting significant supervisory guidance out for public, and submitted it to congress under the review act. Other comments to the supervisory process such as a rulemaking that would cover the agencys use guidance and supervisoryis in the supervisory process. This roadmap is greatly encouraging irish the fed to take steps to put it into motion and finally theres a constant innovation including in the Financial Services industry to increase resources to en banc and under bank populationscl, reduce friction and payment and increase efficiency and delivery of Financial Products and services, some recent examples are facebooks announcement of regret, a new Stable Cryptocurrency backed by a reserve of real assets and leveraging watching technology. Work by global governments and Central Banks to discs for the development of Central Bank Digital currency especially amid rumors chinas launch is imminent. The numerous applications of distributed Ledger Technology including clearing and settlement, Identity Verification crossborder transactions and some Financial Institutions adoptions of public cloud technology. As i stated in past hearings it seemed to be technological innovation in this space are inevitable and the us should be leading and developing what the rules of the road should be. During this hearing i look forward to hearing your thoughts, mr. Chairman,in on these issues and about the work the fed is engaged in to appropriately address themg and again, thank you for joining us today. Senator brown . Thank you, mr. Chairman and chairman powell, nice to have you back. Thank you for your accessibility and conversations you had with all of us in both parties we have on the committee and before we started with say a few words about what happened last night when we got word that jesse lose all nomination had been withdrawn. She was to appear in front of the senate when President Trump withdrew her nomination she was going to appear in front of this committee tomorrow and i heard some of you, my colleagues and friends as a the president would be chastened by impeachment and some of you told me you knew what the president did was wrong. Some of you privately to me told me m how much you think he lies, but that also said publicly that was not enough to rise to the level of removal from office and many of you asserted he learned his lesson and would not do these things again and when try to through illegal means try to change the 2020 election. Its clear the president of the United States did learn the lessonge, he couldve use his office. You will never ever be held accountable by this senate. That was the lesson. Hes now since quit old on retribution to her starting a Prayer Breakfast, a Prayer Breakfast mind you continuing through the east room where many of you were in the audience and applauded him as he personally attacked people who assert this country. He removed colonel sunman, a patriot purple heart recipient who spent his life serving our country. He mocked his accent, his accent from his ukrainian accent. He removed a trouble pointing after he testified to the quid pro quo in yesterday and the reason i bring this up today as he continued the two are interfering up a department of justice, strongarming political appointees to overworld career prosecutors, those attorneys withdrawn protest those professionals. I have no idea their political party, those withdrew and at least one resigned entirely from the department. We cannot give him a permanent license to turn the presidency and. He executive branch you all know its happening even the senator that just walked out nose economy. Im afraid thats what we are seeingcoming personal vengeance operation. No one should be above the law. If we say nothing and i include everyone including myself if we say nothing it will get worse. His behavior will get worse,e, the retribution to her will get worse. Mr. Chairman, now onto the issue at hand. I welcome chairman powell back. On earlier this week bloomberg reported on a profitable Spanish Company opening up branches and 36 states. They buy and sell plasma americans who are struggling to make ends meet are lining up to sell their blood to put food on the table w blood harvesting business is booming and stock is doing great. Hard to think of a better metaphor for the trump economy. S p 500 and nasdaq both reached highs, 2019 j. P. Morgan chase had the best year in history, 36 billion 36 billion in profit. Their spending hundreds of millions of dollars in a a paper that economies been expanding uninterrupted for over 10 years although the growth the last years the Obama Administration has been bit greater than the growth of the Trump Administration. Talk to the vast majority of people that rely on paychecks to earn a living get a different story appeared they have been bleeding for years, most families dont understand why the harder they work sometimes more one job harder gets to afford pretty much everything00, child care, healthcare, red, College Tuition and the people in the room a remember last septemberis when the financial industry went into a panic under benchmark Interest Rate passing 10 . Wall street face uncertainty so we responded. Fed leapt into action coming up with a plan that led Federal Reserve lending about 200 million of it in the Financial Markets through a mechanism that has not been used since the financial crisis, 200 billion every day. I dont think its wrong for the fred had to be created and make sure that economy keeps working. Its in everyones interest for banks to keep lending money so businesses can investthesi and consumers can buy houses and cars pick my problem is when main street faces uncertainty known at the fed jumps into action or gets created. President doesnt criticize by tweet or in person by the name the Federal Reserve chair when hes well, he never demands corporation wage raise wages. Its hard for families to understand why wall street gets worked up about a 10 interest nete was 70 families are lucky the payday lender down the street charges them less than 400 . Small businesses having trouble making payroll tot have accessnd reap 058 at the local fed branch and the fed doesnt take action, doesnt take action when its own researches found 40 of americans dont have the cash think about that,in 40 of american dont have 400 in cash when their car breaks down to get to work to fix it so they go to the payday lender and things spiraled downward. S no one raises alarm went 40 million americans predict they will miss at least one credit card paymentdy which means 1. 2 billion in late fees will flow from the pockets of struggling families to help j. P. Morgan and chase earned a 36 last year. Serious people have not dropped everything to bring down the cost of housing or raise wages when they found out one and forerunners pay more than half their income toward housing. One thing goes wrong in their life in their lives turned upside down people look at that and economiesent into different responses. We hear a lot about the divide in this country between red and blue, world and urban, coast and heartlandth, people that watch msnbc and people that watch box and people feel no matter how hard they work they cant maintain real economic security. Of the real divide is between those whose problems are considered emergency and those who struggle wall street in large parts of washington decide they can ignore. The fed needs to get created for the people that make this country work and its becomegt clear the president of majority leader are not about to. President trump brags aboutt her storied stock market he pumped up with this deficit busting Million Dollars tax break for millionaires with the deficits exceeding a chilean dollars and now he wants to pay for those tax arcuts as he says in his budget by cutting medicaid and medicare and social security. He lies about a bluecollar bloom. Vo i was fairly incredible incredulous when my own state and novel [inaudible] to kill the loan program that was giving the community of boards have prpr somehope manufacturing jobs would come backho. Chairman powell, un your stop have been proactive in creative and protective wall street in the money markets for the presidency routing behavior and im glad you have. We are appreciative, but i hope you will tell us how you will be abproactive and use the same level of creativity to make that economy work for everyone else see Bank Chairman powell, i for one commend you for the work you are doingh with tremendous results i expect he will discuss with us today from the efforts you have undertaking. You may now make your statement and then we will proceed. Thank you very much. Members of the committee, im pleased to present the Federal Reserve semiannual Monetary Policy report. My colleagues and i support the goals of maximum employment and price stability set for Monetary Policy. Congress gave us an important degree of independence to pursue these goals based solely on data and analysis. This independence it brings an to explain clearly how we pursued our goals and today i will review the current economic situationel before returning to Monetary Policy. Economic expansion is well into its 11th year and longest on record. The second half of last or Economic Activity increased at a moderate pace in the labor market strength and further as the economy appeared resilient to the global headwind it intensified last summer. Inflation has been low and stable, but continued to run below the symmetric 2 objective. Job gains average 200,000 per month in the second half of last year and additional 225,000 jobs were added in january. Pace of job gains has remained above whats needed to provide jobs for new workers and labor force allowing Unemployment Rate to move down further over the course of last year. Unemployment rate was 3. 6 last month and has been near halfcentury lows for more than a year job openings remain employers are willing to hire workers with fewer skills and train them and as a result of the strong labor market its become more widely shared work people who will live and work them or income communities are funding opportunities with employment gains broadbased upon all levels of education. Wages have been rising particularly for low paying jobs in gdp rose at a moderate rate over the second, last year. Growth in Consumer Spending moderated toward the end of the year following earlier strong increases, the fundamentals supporting household spending. Emained solidgaof president ial investment turned up in the second half but Business Investment efforts were weak affecting a sluggish growth abroad and trade developmentse to the same factors weighed on activity in the nations factories whoses output declined over the first half of 2019 and has been little changed since then. February Monetary Policy report discusses the recent weakness in manufacturing and some of the uncertainties have diminished, but risks remain and wer are closely monitoring the emergence of the coronavirus that can lead to disruption in china. Inflation ran below the symmetric 2 objectiveve. Over the 12 months through december overall inflation based on the price index for personal consumption expenditures 1. 6 . Core inflation which excludes the volatile food and Energy Prices 1. 6 6 . Over the next few months we expect inflation to move closer to 2 as unusually low readings from 2019 drop out of the 12 month calculation the nation faces and portal longer run challenges, Labor Force Participation by individuals in their prime working years is at its highest rate in more than a decade. It remains lower than most other advanced and there are troubling labor market disparities across racial and ethnic groups and across regions of the country. In addition, although its encouraging productivity growth the main engine for raising wages and Living Standards has moved up recently productivity gains have been subpar throughout this long economic expansion and finding ways to boost Labor Participation productivity would benefit americans and it should remain a national priority. Iv i will now turn to Monetary Policy. Over the second half of 2019 shifted to a more accommodated stance to cushion the economy from weaker Global Growth and trade devoutness and promote a fast return of inflation to art symmetric 2 objective. Will lower the federal funds rate target rage atst our meetings bringing the current target range to one and a half to one and three quarters percent. Subsequent meetings with uncertainties surrounding trade, the Committee Left the policy rate unchanged. Believe the current stance of Monetary Policy will support continued Economic Growth, strong labor market in inflation returning to the committees symmetric 2 objective and as long as incoming information about the economy remains consistent with the outlook the current stance of Monetary Policy will remain appropriate. Policy is not on a preset course and developments emerge that cause material reassessment of our outlook and we would respond accordingly. Taking a longer view theres been a decline over the past quarter century in the level of Interest Rates consisten