Unprecedented Lobbying

“In the history of the Fed, there was never anything like this,” said Allan Meltzer, a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh and the author of a multivolume history of the central bank.

Policy makers’ actions during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and its aftermath have been “fiscal in their nature” and invited political interference, he said.

Bernanke, 59, established the central bank’s role as the nation’s main rescue agent during the 18-month recession that began in December 2007 by using the Fed’s balance sheet to save Bear Stearns Cos. from collapse in March 2008. He gave out more than $2 trillion in emergency aid through that rescue and the rescue of American International Group Inc., six loan programs and currency swaps with other central banks.

With the target for the Fed’s benchmark rate stuck near zero since December 2008, Bernanke also has pursued three rounds of so-called quantitative easing that have swelled the central bank’s balance sheet to a record of more than $3.5 trillion.

Price Stability

Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, have argued that the Fed’s stimulus programs have risked a rapid acceleration in prices. They’ve also championed a change in the Federal Reserve Act that would restrict the Fed’s focus solely to its goal of price stability, eliminating its full-employment mandate.

Inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index has averaged 1.9 percent since February 2006, the month Bernanke became chairman. The central bank has a 2 percent inflation goal.

“For the next chairman to get back to independence will require a very strong chairman -- a Volcker type -- and those are not easy to find and even harder to confirm in this totally politicized environment,” Meltzer said.

Paul Volcker, 85, is remembered for his battle against inflation during his 1979 to 1987 tenure, when he allowed the federal funds effective rate to rise as high as 22 percent to tame annual price acceleration approaching 15 percent.