By SCOTT S. POWELL

Today’s auction of 10- and 30-year US Treasury notes and bonds won’t tell us as much about the US economy as auctions used to — because the Federal Reserve has started buying up the notes as part of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s “quantitative easing” effort.

Until recently, a plentitude of bidders for long-term US government debt was a sign the US economy was strong. But Bernanke is buying that debt in what he says is an effort to make the economy stronger.

This has a lot of people nervous — and the news that the Fed may spend up to $800 billion on this, rather than the $600 billion figure initially given, doesn’t help.

Even if the purpose is to stimulate the economy, increase stock prices and lower interest rates, the effect of Bernanke’s policy may be monetizing the nation’s growing debt — printing new money to finance deficit spending.

Get full story here.

By JON HILSENRATH

WASHINGTON—Eighteen months after President Barack Obama administered a massive dose of spending increases and tax cuts to a weak economy, a brawl has broken out among economists and politicians about whether fiscal-stimulus medicine is curing the illness or making it worse.

The debate is more than academic. It is shaping congressional decisions on whether to respond to the distressing prognosis for the U.S. economy with more government spending or a dose of deficit reduction.

Get full story here.