WASHINGTON – With the U.S. economy sinking into a severe recession, the Federal Reserve is set to launch a high-risk program through which it will lend money to small and medium-sized companies outside the banking industry for the first time since the Great Depression.
More than the eight other lending facilities the Fed has established in the nearly two months since the viral outbreak shut down the economy, its Main Street Lending Program will be the most complex and challenging yet, economists say.
It will likely draw the Fed into more public scrutiny than it has faced since the 2008 financial crisis. In setting up a lending program that will inevitably exclude some companies, the Fed is inviting criticism that it is, in effect, choosing