Bush Backs Fed Chief For a Second Term; President Denies a Delay on Reappointment
President Bush, brushing aside past differences over the right level for interest rates, said yesterday he will appoint Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to a second four-year term and praised him for having done "an outstanding job."</br></br>The announcement came a month before Greenspan's term is scheduled to end and gives little time for the Senate to confirm him before a lengthy recess begins Aug. 5. With those dates in mind, many financial analysts had speculated Bush delayed renaming Greenspan to keep pressure on the Fed to again lower interest rates to boost the economy.</br></br>One issue that might have contributed to the delay, an analyst said, was how to go about announcing the decision without embracing the Fed's anti-inflation policies. The policies helped slow growth well before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait last summer knocked the economy into recession.</br></br>Bush denied there had been any real delay, but even the circumstances of the announcement suggested otherwise: It came at a hurriedly called 6 p.m. White House press conference after the president earlier in the day had declined to say when he would make a decision on Greenspan.</br></br>"To the degree markets have been jittery in anticipation {of the decision}, which I don't think has been the case, it certainly should be a reassuring signal to not only domestic markets but to world markets," Bush said.