The Democrats showered its policies with encomiums like “herculean.”
And those were just the opening statements on Wednesday, as the Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, began two days of biannual testimony on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Yellen functions as the nation’s economic weatherwoman, and on Wednesday, she sounded more worried than at her last public appearance, in December. Convulsions in financial markets, it seems, could restrain economic growth.
“Financial conditions in the United States have recently become less supportive of growth,” she told the House Financial Services Committee. “These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity.”
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But Ms. Yellen said it was too soon to assess any damage, and she suggested that it was also too soon to say whether the Fed would raise interest rates in