The Federal Reserve’s $600 billion asset-purchase plan has become misperceived as a government bailout, which may require policy makers to do a better job of explaining its rationale, Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said.

“What is really only ordinary monetary policy got conflated, I think, with other kinds of government programs, bailout programs,” Bullard told reporters today after speaking at a housing finance conference in St. Louis. “It is up to us to try to communicate better about monetary policy.”