Michael Chapman, the owner of a building company with 20 employees in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has had trouble getting a bank loan and this month he let Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig know it. Owners of small businesses across the country are telling Fed officials that they would expand and hire more workers if only they could get financing. Policy makers at the end of a two-day meeting starting tomorrow may cite scant lending as a drag on demand as they affirm a pledge to keep interest rates low for an “extended period.”
