Trump Almost Has a Point About the Federal Reserve
While Trump's plan to control the Federal Reserve is likely illegal and dangerous, the article argues that Democrats should not simply defend the status quo. The Fed deserves independence over interest-rate setting to shield monetary policy from electoral pressure, but it has abused its broader powers—including bank regulation, payment systems oversight, and emergency lending—consistently favoring financial institutions over ordinary people, from its refusal to regulate subprime mortgages before 2008 to its miserly $17.5 billion Main Street lending during the pandemic versus over $100 billion to Wall Street. The solution is legislation that preserves Fed independence for monetary policy while stripping away its other authorities and transferring them to democratically accountable institutions like the comptroller of the currency or FDIC.