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 Just 24 percent of those polled said Congress should be allowed to
have detailed oversight of the Fed, the poll shows. More than double
that amount said the central bank should be left alone.
The poll of 1,388 Americans was conducted from Feb 20-24 to measure
whether people supported proposed legislation that would expose the
Fed to a full government audit, a move being led by Rand Paul, a
likely 2016 presidential candidate.
The Republican Senator from Kentucky held an "Audit the Fed" rally
in Iowa last month, and his spokesman told Reuters that polls showed
Americans want the central bank to be audited.
Supporters of the campaign say the Fed needs more transparency and
accountability. Opponents say the Fed is already audited, and that
exposure of internal policy discussions could lead to political
influence over decisions on interest rates and damage market
confidence.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen came under pressure from conservatives in
Congress this week, with some accusing her of bias towards
Democrats.
When asked about who should be responsible for setting interest
rates, 66 percent of the participants said independent experts,
while 34 percent said elected officials.
"There ought to be some review but I don't know that a full public
disclosure of every comment attributed to every Fed member for the
whole world to see is necessarily the best option," said David Webb,
64, a former labor relations specialist for the U.S. Army.
The Davenport, Iowa, resident said his concern is that public
exposure of the comments invite politicians to manipulate the
process, and opens the door for them to apply pressure on Fed
officials with whom they disagree, or agree on certain policy
matters.
The Fed undergoes annual third-party audits and has been subjected
to numerous government reviews, but its internal discussions about
monetary policy matters and transactions with foreign banks are
among its functions that have been exempt from a government audit
since 1978. Paul's bill, and a similar one raised in the House of
Representatives, seeks to end that exemption.
Conservatives have stepped up attacks on the Fed for its handling of
the 2008 financial crisis and for the more than $3.5 trillion of
bonds it purchased afterward to stimulate the economy. Among their
concerns is that the bond buying would cause a surge in inflation
and debase the dollar, fears that have failed to play out. The
dollar has risen 28 percent since May 2011, while market-based
measures show U.S. inflation is declining, still below the Fed's 2
percent target.
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The Senate Banking Committee is holding a Fed reform hearing on
Tuesday, where the issue of the audit is expected to be discussed.
KEEP OUT
Central bank governors are appointed by the White House and subject
to congressional confirmation. The Fed is not appropriated taxpayer
money, rather it uses interest from securities to provide its budget
and transfers profits back to the U.S. Treasury.
The Reuters-Ipsos poll shows that Americans mostly understand that
the Fed has influence over interest rates, but are unsure how the
central bank works. Some 54 percent of those polled don't know who
the Fed chair is, with 7 percent believing that Alan Greenspan is in
charge, and 3 percent naming former Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner. About 48 percent say they either know very little about
the Fed, or have never heard of it at all.
The poll results also show that 49 percent of participants say
important decisions about the nation's money supply should be made
without political influence.
"I think the private conversations of Fed officials should remain
private," said Hope Peterson, 48, a telecommunications worker in
Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The poll results were weighted to current U.S. population data by
gender, age, education and ethnicity. It has a credibility interval
- which measures the survey's precision - of plus or minus 3
percentage points.
(Reporting by Michael Flaherty. Editing by John Pickering)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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