When Chairman Bernanke appears before the Senate Budget Committe this morning, it will be his first official go around with the Dems in charge. I expect it to get ugly as usual and more political posturing than economic policy. In this case, we should expect him to get hammered about the Fed’s efforts. The Dems want him to concentrate more on the mandate for creating full employment, but I find that funny in light of the current unemployment rate and the fact that companies create employment, not governments. The next course of action will likely be focused on setting the stage for the minimum wage battle. We will hear how much Dems hate defining inflation largely by looking at wages and they will bait him into social policy discussions. Inevitably we will get a healthy dose of discussions on personal saving, budget deficits, trade deficits, social problems, etc. The Q&A will be a fun one to watch. A bad performance here will set the stage for Ben getting booted in 2010 so he needs to be on guard. The Fed is supposed to be a non-partisan group but that won’t stop the partisan Congress from doing their thing.