Jerome Powell came out to defend the integrity and sovereignty of the Federal Reserve. “The point of independence is not to protect policymakers or anything like that. It is just that every advanced economy and democracy in the world has come around to this common practice. It’s just an institutional arrangement that has served the people well, and that is to have a separation between — to not have direct elected official control over the setting of monetary policy,” he said.
“The reason is that monetary policy can be used, you know, through an election cycle to affect the economy in a way that will be politically worthwhile,” Powell said. “If you lose that, it’s going to be hard to retain it, and we haven’t lost it. I don’t believe we will… it’s enabled central banks generally not to be perfect, but to serve the public well.”
I do not agree with Trump that political leaders should control the Federal Reserve or dictate monetary policy. That would be a serious mistake. Politicians operate on short election cycles and will always favor policies that produce immediate results, regardless of the long-term consequences. However, that does not mean the Federal Reserve is genuinely independent, nor does it mean that its structure has “served the people well,” as Powell claims.
The Federal Reserve is appointed by politicians, confirmed by politicians, and ultimately exists to support government financing. Its primary function today is to ensure that government debt can be issued and serviced. If it were truly independent, it would refuse to accommodate endless deficit spending. It does not. Instead, it responds to fiscal excess by monetizing debt and then pretending inflation is something mysterious beyond its comprehension.
The Fed was created in 1913 as a regional system precisely because capital flows change with the seasons. Crops are planted, money flows one way; harvest arrives, it flows another. That design worked because it was decentralized. What destroyed that structure was not politicians meddling in interest rates, but war. World War I forced the Fed to abandon its original mandate and become a funding arm of government debt. From that moment forward, independence ended.
The Fed today is appointed by politicians, confirmed by politicians, and operates entirely to accommodate government borrowing. If it were truly independent, it would refuse to monetize debt. Instead, it has enabled the largest expansion of government liabilities in human history while claiming neutrality. This is why the entire debate between “Fed independence” and “political control” is a distraction that neither can control inflation, and confidence itself is eroding.