Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a consistant critic of the Federal Reserve, has scheduled a hearing next week to investigate the central bank’s latest round of debt buying, giving the Ohio Democrat an official forum to assail a policy backed by President Barack Obama.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

The hearing will examine the Fed’s decision earlier this month to buy up to $600 billion in long-term Treasury debt “in light of massive unemployment and the seeming inability of government to invest in infrastructure or to intervene to stop the loss of jobs,” according to a Kucinich press release.

Mr. Kucinich backed legislation that called for an official audit of the central bank, and would like Congress to have more say over monetary policy. The congressman locked horns with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last year over whether the Fed knew about mounting losses at Merrill Lynch before it oversaw the investment bank’s shotgun marriage with Bank of America in the fall of 2008…