BACHUS: Chairman Bernanke, I'm not seeing a lot of discussion concerning the reduction in treasury issuance with the deficit coming down. It seems like that would give you more latitude to reduce your purchases of treasuries. Would you like to comment on that?
BERNANKE: Well, the Fed still owns a relatively small share of all the treasuries outstanding. It's true that as the new issuance comes down that our purchases become a larger share of the new flow of treasuries coming into the market. But we have not seen that our purchases are disrupting the treasury market in any way. And we believe that they have been effective in keeping interest rates low.
That being said, as I've described, depending how the economy evolves, we -- you know, we are considering changing the mix of tools we use to maintain the high level of accommodation.
BACHUS: Yeah, but the fact that they are -- will be probably issuing less is a factor you're considering, I guess.
BERNANKE: We would consider that. But, you know, again, our view of it, which, you know, people disagree -- but our view is that what matters is the share of the total that we own not the share of the new issuance.