t’s really a question of, are we getting the bang for the buck? And clearly we’re not. The system was sputtering. And I began to feel that at 3.5%. After that, that’s when I dissented. Obviously for this next go-around, I have to watch to see if there is any change in signals. I’m just starting my briefings now for this.

What I’m hearing from CEOs is … the first quarter may have been positive, the second quarter’s probably not. There are real concerns about small businesses. Why? Because they’re not getting access to credit. … The credit system strikes me as being at the heart of the problem. And obviously the Fed has worked very hard on this. I’ve been in favor of every one of these [liquidity] initiatives. To me that’s where the priority is. To get the other to work the way we’re used to it working, it just strikes me that that has to get back to its efficient transmission mechanism.

Fisher said he disagreed with the view the Fed had been "pandering" to markets in cutting rates aggressively.

"We took the actions that were taken as a group in response to what we viewed as the prospective weakening of the US economy and were driven by economic considerations. In terms of the actions we take on the Fed Funds rate there are other tools we can use, for example the term auction facility addresses liquidity needs, and we will continue to develop our tool box," he said.

"My sense, from my personal perspective, is that 3.5% was a sufficient level. We have moved very quickly to that level. Going further to 3% might create a bit of a counter-reaction. In fact, it did create a bit of a counter reaction - that is long term rates went up including on jumbo mortgages and, of course, the dollar has weakened," he said [when asked about his January dissent].
...
"I trust in the wisdom of my colleagues."

As reported by Market News International

My dissenting vote last week was simply a difference of opinion about how far and how fast we might re-spike the monetary punchbowl. Given that I had yet to see a mitigation in inflation and inflationary expectations from their current high levels, and that I believed the steps we had already taken would be helpful in mitigating the downside risk to growth once they took full effect, I simply did not feel it was the proper time to support additional monetary accommodation.

I respect the majority view of the committee. I sleep well at night knowing that the collective wisdom of the group is guided by one common goal: the continued prosperity of the American people.

I think there's a danger of inflation becoming entrenched at the level it is now with core inflation well over two and I think that most people and I myself personally would like to see it down around one-and-a-half percent..

Right now it's difficult at all times to get a hand on where people in the economy generally expect inflation to be. But right now I think there's, you know, a sense that inflation expectations are contained but having said that, there's a dispersion. There's, you know, a range of view about how rapidly inflation will come back down.
    The longer we let inflation remain, core inflation, remain where it is I think the more likely it is that expectations collapse on core inflation remaining about where it is now rather than declining as I would like to see it decline.
     So that's what I mean by becoming entrenched, becoming firmly lodged in the public's mind as an expectation that that's the inflation rate we're going to tolerate and I think that would be a mistake.