Fed Chairman Jerome Powell enjoyed a light moment in July during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee.
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg NewsWASHINGTON— Jerome Powell promised to wear out the carpets on Capitol Hill shortly after he became chairman of the Federal Reserve two years ago. The relationships he has built with lawmakers and the economy’s solid performance have so far helped insulate the central bank from President Trump’s attacks.
Mr. Powell has held around 140 meetings with lawmakers since becoming Fed chief, according to his public calendar through December, around three times as many during the same span as his predecessor.
Many of those have been 30-minute one-on-one meetings with senators and members of the House in Capitol Hill offices, though the tally also includes dinners with small groups of lawmakers and his address last year to the House Democrats’ annual retreat in Virginia. He is set to testify before many of them in twice-yearly hearings Tuesday and Wednesday that are mandated by law.
Lawmakers interviewed gave Mr. Powell high marks for his unwillingness to be drawn into a spat with Mr. Trump, who has frequently chided the Fed leader on Twitter and who wants lower interest rates to boost exports by lowering the relative value of the dollar.
“Overall, I’d give him a good grade,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) said of Mr. Powell. “You can’t be too far from politics in Washington, but the Fed is set up to be pretty independent from Congress and the presidency. Powell has made sure the Fed is not politically compromised.”
The Fed declined to comment for this article.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What questions about the economy would you want to ask Jerome Powell? Join the conversation below.
The central bank shifted to a make-no-moves posture late last year after cutting rates three times to prevent a slowdown in global manufacturing and U.S. business investment from spilling into the broader economy.
The central bank said Friday in a report to Congress that risks of weaker-than-expected growth had declined late last year, but possible impacts from the effects of the coronavirus epidemic, which has led to quarantines in China and limits on air travel to the country, present a new risk to the outlook.
For much of the past decade, Republicans expressed concern that the Fed was keeping interest rates too low and expanding its asset portfolio too much. But members of both parties in recent interviews have mostly signaled support with the Fed’s decisions last year to cut rates after raising them steadily in 2017 and 2018.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D., Ky.) said he was impressed by Mr. Powell’s candor about the Fed’s difficulty forecasting economic growth beyond two or three years. “He doesn’t necessarily have all of the answers. That’s different from other Fed chairs I’ve known,” he said.
Mr. Yarmuth found the central bank leader to be “very friendly, very smart, and pretty humble. He’s self-effacing,” said Mr. Yarmuth. “You can tell he is very, very human.”
During and after the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed’s leaders at times faced strong criticism from lawmakers unhappy with either regulatory failures or concerned with the ultra-easy policies deployed to stimulate growth. Mr. Powell has largely avoided those barbs for now. To be sure, Mr. Powell could enjoy better relations than his recent predecessors because the economy is growing steadily and unemployment is at half-century lows.
Fed officials say that they set policy without regard to partisan politics or instructions from elected leaders, citing a body of research that has shown better inflation outcomes for economies where central banks operate with greater independence from the legislative and executive branches.
Political analysts say Mr. Powell appears to have internalized lessons from last decade’s attacks on the central bank by making it a priority to develop strong relationships with lawmakers in both parties.
“For all the emphasis that Fed officials and others place on central bank insulation from politics, the Fed needs political support to make tough policy choices,” said Sarah Binder, a political-science professor at George Washington University who has written a book about the Fed. “It certainly greases the skids for when you need to make your case to lawmakers for any decision that is perceived to be difficult—that lawmakers will back you and be less inclined to attack you.”
Since he was nominated for his job in November 2017, Mr. Powell has met individually at least once with 76 of 100 sitting senators.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) said he didn’t agree with Mr. Trump’s call for even lower interest rates and questioned whether the last of the Fed’s recent rate cuts was warranted. But he said Mr. Powell had done a good job explaining why the Fed made its decisions and emphasizing how political considerations didn’t play a part.
He credited Mr. Powell with a willingness to listen to opposing points of view. Mr. Toomey said he disagreed with Mr. Powell’s decision to support the central bank’s development of a new payment clearinghouse. The two men have dined or met three times between November 2018 and last July, according to Mr. Powell’s public calendar. “They’ve been substantive conversations,” Mr. Toomey said.
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"easy" - Google News
February 09, 2020 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/2SfzXaB
With Easy Demeanor, Powell Cultivates Allies on Capitol Hill - Wall Street Journal
"easy" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38z63U6
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "With Easy Demeanor, Powell Cultivates Allies on Capitol Hill - Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment