BEDFORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) ? Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry Wednesday called for more transparency from the Federal Reserve to show that the central bank was not engaging in unspecified "improper" actions.
It was a fresh attack on the Fed from Perry, who is on an "announcement tour" after launching his bid for the White House Saturday.
Monday, the Texas governor created a stir when he said he would consider it "treasonous" if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke "prints more money between now and the election" in November 2012.
Under Bernanke, the central bank has embarked on one of the most extended periods of cheap money in U.S. history in an effort to right the U.S. economy.
With the economy still struggling and government spending being cut back, some have suggested the Fed might embark on a new round of monetary stimulus.
The Fed has been criticized by many for opaque decision making on policy, especially regarding its purchases of billions of dollars in bonds and other U.S. financial instruments since the 2008 financial crisis.
"They should open their books up. They should be transparent so that the people of the United States know what they are doing," the Texas governor said at a packed breakfast meeting in Bedford, New Hampshire.
"It would go a long way to showing if there had been activities that had been improper," Perry said.
Without such action, "there will continue to be questions about their activities and what their true goal is for the United States," he added.
Still, Perry's tone, in comments made to a non-partisan audience of local business people, was not as harsh on Wednesday. He said he was one of a number of Republicans who have questioned the Fed's transparency.
"I got in trouble talking about the Federal Reserve yesterday. I got lectured about that," Perry said.
Perry, a conservative, has emerged as a key threat to some of the better-known names in the Republican primary race to take on President Barack Obama next year.
His party rivals include former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has lead most opinion polls, and Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, who won the non-binding Iowa straw poll on Saturday.
The White House denounced Perry Tuesday for threatening remarks toward Bernanke that represented some of the most inflammatory rhetoric of the 2012 election campaign.
Perry had said Texans would treat Bernanke "pretty ugly" if the Fed printed more money ahead of the November 2012 presidential election.
FED RESPONSE
Responding to earlier criticism, the Fed has taken several moves to make its actions more open. For example, Bernanke has held press conferences for the first time.
The Fed has amassed close to $3 trillion in U.S. debt to add liquidity to the financial system. The central bank releases a general breakdown of those holdings that details the type of security and its maturity.
A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely Republican primary voters taken Monday showed that Perry, riding a wave of publicity, had 29 percent of support against 18 percent for Romney and 13 percent for Bachmann.
Campaigning in the key early primary state of New Hampshire, Perry focused his attention mostly on Obama. He mostly avoided social issues, where his conservative views are seen as out of step with more liberal northeast Republicans.
"We spent the last two and a half years in a grand experiment in the U.S. economy," Perry said of the Obama administration. "It's been a terrible, terrible disaster."
Perry referred often to Texas' record of strong employment growth in recent years -- figures that critics say have been helped by the creation of thousands of minimum wage jobs.
Lower taxes, legal reform and less regulation have been the basis for Texas' success, said Perry, adding that if elected he would be an "unapologetic" pro-business president.
"We followed this recipe to produce the strongest economy in the country. It's time to do the same thing in our Federal government. These simple principles will work as well in Washington, D.C., as they do in the state of Texas."
As part of a push to add jobs, especially in manufacturing, Perry suggested a cut to the corporate tax rate, and said that corporations now holding money offshore should be allowed to bring back their funds at a lower tax rate.
(Editing by Jackie Frank)
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