The Federal Reserve Is Too Independent

"He is breaking with decades of precedent and allegedly the law to attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a Biden-era appointee to the bank's board of governors. It appears to be part of his campaign to demand lower interest rates, which is a lousy policy when inflation hasn't quite cooled. Trump has done little otherwise to bring prices down. His aggressive tariff regime, certainly, will punish many families - especially when it's not coupled with a new industrial policy or jobs program."

"If Trump has, in almost every instance since taking office in January, shoved up against the boundaries of presidential and constitutional powers, behaving like the voracious strongman he is, liberals should be careful to conflate his designs on the Fed as the equivalent of any of his other disturbing maneuvers, like dispatching the National Guard to major cities or menacing immigrants."

"The Fed is decidedly not a bastion of liberalism and not, objectively, all that democratic. It doesn't actually make much sense for Democrats, or the left broadly, to cheer on an independent board of Wall Street-aligned technocrats to manage the economy free of the executive branch or even Congress. The concept certainly would have been alien to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who loomed over the Fed for the entirety of his presidency and ensured his chair was ideologically aligned with the New Deal."

Donald Trump is attempting to exert control over the Federal Reserve, including efforts to remove Lisa Cook from the board of governors, breaking decades of precedent and possibly the law. The effort appears aimed at pressuring lower interest rates despite persistent inflation. Concurrent aggressive tariffs risk raising costs for families absent a complementary industrial policy or jobs program. The Federal Reserve operates as a technocratic, not particularly democratic, institution aligned with financial interests. Historically, presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt exerted ideological influence over the Fed. Expanding federal power is not inherently conservative, yet Trump's broader executive abuses target the social safety net and vulnerable populations.

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