For another, when we set the date, I had expected that Chairman Bernanke would have already given our Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, and I could simply develop some of the themes he had laid out.
In order to promote better balance between aggregate demand and potential supply and to contain inflationary pressures, the Federal Open Market Committee took additional firming actions, raising the benchmark federal funds rate 1 percentage point between February and May. Even with these increases, the Committee felt that the balance of risks to the economic outlook still was tipped toward greater inflation.