Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"They are very important, and I think with the Federal Reserve, they work sort of behind the scenes. They don't get a lot of the flashy press attention that the Congress and the president do when they're talking about a stimulus plan and the federal budget. But behind the scenes, the Federal Reserve has been very active. They have lowered interest rates. They have dramatically increased the supply of money and credit, and they have bought or backed many questionable financial assets from banks and other lenders. Now there's a substantial amount of economic literature showing that the Federal Reserve's policies can actually work faster and stronger than the additional spending or tax cuts that we will see coming from the Congress and the president. I think the big reason is the Federal Reserve simply can move faster. You don't hear a lot of debate about their policies. They meet in secret, and they can move very quickly once they make a decision for action. So I think it's very important to realize that the Federal Reserve has been working behind the scenes. Many economists think that what they've been doing over the last year will really begin to kick in toward the end of this year. But also the Federal Reserve has to have a withdrawal plan. Because once the economy is back on track, it will be very interesting to see how they remove some of those additional monies and credits they put in the economy, and to what degree they increase interest rates."