MNI TRANSCRIPT: Powell on 'Main Street' Facility, US Debt

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following is the portion of a transcript from

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference Wednesday:

     Q: The patient protection program has experienced logistical programs

because of the speed at which this is happening. For the main street lending

facilities, which will also work through banks, what lessons are you taking away

from that, and then more broadly, you mentioned earlier this year that federal

debt was on a unsustainable path. I was wondering for Republicans that are

starting to get worried about how much fiscal spending they are having to do in

this crisis, whether that should be a concern for them.

     A: So a couple things. This is different from the PPP that patient

protection program in two ways. One is these are not grants. These are loans. I

don't know that the demand will be quite as strong as it has been for the PPP. I

don't know that. The second thing is, we won't run out of money. It's not a

limited pot. There won't be this incentive to try to get there first and that

sort of thing. I'm hopeful we will very much try to learn as much as possible

from that facility and from all the other ones too, we have a lot to learn here.

We will certainly be trying to do that. 

     In terms of fiscal concern, for many years I've been, before the Fed, I

have long time been an advocate for, of the need for the United States to return

to a sustainable path, from a fiscal perspective at the federal level. We have

not been on such a path for some time which means that the debt is growing

faster than the economy. This is not the time to act on those concerns. 

     This is the time to use the great fiscal power of the United States to do

what we can to support the economy and try to get through this with as little

damage to the longer run productive capacity of the economy as possible. The

time will come, again, and reasonably soon I think, where we can think about a

long term way to get our fiscal house in order and we absolutely need to do

that. But this is not the time to be, in my personal view, this is not the time

to let that concern, which is a very serious concern but to let that get in the

way of us winning this battle really.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202 371 2121; email: evan.ryser@marketnews.com

[TOPICS: MMUFE$,M$U$$$]