WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 – Sen. Bernie Sanders today called on the Federal Reserve to act aggressively to address the jobs crisis in America.
A new Fed plan to stimulate growth, he said, falls short.

“Today’s action by the Federal Reserve is not bold and will not create the millions of jobs that America needs,” Sanders said.

“At a time when 16.2 percent of the American people are unemployed or under-employed, the Fed needs to act aggressively,” Sanders added. “There is a jobs crisis in this country today that is every bit as bad as the financial crisis was in 2008. I want to see the Fed respond to the unemployment crisis with the same urgency that it responded to the crisis on Wall Street.”

A $300 billion emergency lending program for small businesses would create more than 3 million jobs in the United States, Sanders said.

During the financial crisis, the Fed provided more than $16 trillion in low-interest loans to large financial institutions, foreign central banks, multi-national corporations, and some of the wealthiest people in the world. Those were  among the findings of a Government Accountability Office audit performed pursuant to a Sanders provision in last year’s Wall Street reform law.

“It is time for the Federal Reserve to act aggressively to get low-interest loans into the hands of creditworthy small businesses — the real job creators in this country,” Sanders said.