Congressman Jim Saxton of New Jersey, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, has introduced an inflation-targeting bill several times, but the bill currently has no cosponsors and has not been reviewed recently in committee hearings. Previous inflation-targeting bills have fared no better.
For example, broker-dealers fund themselves primarily in the repo market, mainly at overnight maturities, while shadow banks fund themselves in the commercial paper market and the majority of commercial banks rely on retail finance – chequing and savings deposits – which usually consists of sight or shortmaturity instruments. Wholesale funding for commercial banks is, typically, very short-term as well.