Bernanke Set to Defend Record as Reappointment Debate Begins

By Scott Lanman

June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will defend his unprecedented actions to prevent a financial collapse as debate on whether he should be reappointed begins.

Bernanke, whose term expires Jan. 31, faces lawmakers at a hearing this week on steps to aid Bank of America Corp.’s takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. as Congress increasingly questions the Fed’s interventions. The session comes after a two-day meeting on monetary policy that starts today.

President Barack Obama has said the Fed chief has done an “extraordinary job” without committing to reappoint him. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in reference to a possible candidacy for Obama economic official Lawrence Summers, told a lawmaker last week it wasn’t “appropriate” to pledge that top advisers weren’t in the running for the job.

“The vultures are circling,” said David M. Jones, a former Fed economist who is president of DMJ Advisors LLC in Denver. Bernanke is “going to be on the defensive,” even after “turning confidence around” since the depths of the crisis, he predicted.

At stake is whether Bernanke, 55, pilots the Fed into an expanded financial-supervision role after overseeing the most aggressive use of the Fed’s powers since the Great Depression.

Odds for Bernanke

Through doubling the central bank’s balance sheet to $2.1 trillion, Bernanke has helped thaw credit markets and put the economy on a path toward recovery. Odds favor the former Princeton University economist, a Republican: Reappointment may be less disruptive to investors, and no first-term president has replaced a sitting chairman in 30 years. Many on Wall Street and in Washington view it as likely Bernanke will be reappointed.

“There’s a very strong case for reappointment,” said Douglas Lee, who runs Economics from Washington in Potomac, Maryland, and worked on Capitol Hill in the 1970s. “Removing a Fed chairman who is generally perceived to have done an outstanding job would be an enormous problem.”

Traders on online exchange Intrade place 65 percent odds on Bernanke’s renomination.

Still, any Obama decision may be half a year away, and the economy and financial markets could shift again. The jobless rate is still rising, and economists anticipate it will reach a quarter-century high of 10 percent at year-end. The Fed is mandated by Congress to achieve maximum employment as well as stable prices.

Summers, Yellen

Besides keeping Bernanke, Obama’s options include appointing Summers or Janet Yellen, both among the most prominent Democratic economists and veterans of the Clinton administration, Jones said. Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, declined to comment.

Summers, 54, a former Treasury secretary who heads Obama’s National Economic Council, is considered the front-runner should the president want a change. San Francisco Fed President Yellen, 62, was previously a Fed governor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and would be the first female Fed chief.

Summers wants the job, Senator Robert Bennett of Utah, the No. 2 Republican on the Banking Committee, said in an interview. Asked if he would support Summers for Fed chairman, Bennett said: “I am told that Larry would very much like me to. I would have no objection to Larry.”

Bernanke has “done a good job under very difficult conditions,” Bennett also said. “Whether the president feels that way or not is another question.”

Frank Won’t Commit

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he’s “very pleased” with Bernanke. “Beyond that I wouldn’t say” anything about a renomination, the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview.

Bernanke took office in February 2006 with an agenda to make the Fed more transparent in setting monetary policy and to depersonalize the institution from its chairman, conferring weight to the views of other top officials. In 2007, his term became engulfed by the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s.

His record includes preventing the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos., extending emergency loans to investment banks, financing purchases of corporate debt, bailing out American International Group Inc. and shoring up consumer-credit markets.

Some signs have emerged that the crisis is waning. U.S. companies have sold at least $698 billion of debt this year, 24 percent more than the same period of 2008, Bloomberg data show. The Libor-OIS spread, which measures banks’ willingness to lend, has narrowed to 0.37 percentage point, from a record 3.64 points in October.

FOMC Meeting

The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee gathers today in Washington to consider any change to its pledges to purchase as much as $300 billion of Treasuries and $1.45 trillion of housing debt and keep its benchmark interest rate near zero. The FOMC statement is expected about 2:15 p.m. tomorrow.

Among Bernanke’s most controversial steps have been allowing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to fail and his discussions regarding Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

His role in that takeover will be examined in a House Oversight Committee hearing June 25, when lawmakers plan to question whether he applied inappropriate pressure to Bank of America to complete the purchase of Merrill Lynch after the company discovered mounting losses.

At a June 11 hearing with Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, the committee released internal Fed e- mails, some from Bernanke, obtained by subpoena. One missive from the Fed chairman indicated he saw Lewis’s threat to scuttle the deal as a “bargaining chip.”

House Subpoena

Republicans on the committee used the e-mails to argue the government overstepped its authority. Last week, the panel issued another subpoena for more Fed documents.

Bernanke has recent history on his side: Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush all reappointed Fed chairmen in their first terms. “He’s still got at least a decent chance,” said Jones, putting the odds at about 60-40 in Bernanke’s favor.

“His record has not been perfect, but it’s been pretty good,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat on the Banking Committee, which will vet the nomination. On whether to keep Bernanke, “I leave that to the president,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net.