Newest Fed Member, Trump Appointee Stephen Miran, Is the Big Hero at Today’s Open Market Committee Meeting
While the central bank’s policymakers raise their GDP projections slightly, their numbers basically say: We at the Fed don’t believe Trump policies.

Quite apart from the Fed’s rather dovish interest rate cuts — they’re signaling two more quarter point drops after today’s move — one of the things that struck me about today’s announcement is how much the central bank apparently opposes President Trump’s pro-growth economic policies.
Mr. Trump’s supply-side tax cuts and deregulation moves are going to boost economic growth while keeping prices low.
Already, second-quarter gross domestic product growth has come in at 3.3 percent and the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is projecting another 3.3 percent in the third quarter.
There’s a business and factory capital spending boom going on. And real take-home pay is rising.
Yet the Jay Powell Fed expects the economy to grow by only 1.6 percent this year, 1.8 percent next year, and 1.9 percent the year after.
While the central bank’s policymakers did raise their GDP projections slightly, their numbers basically say: We at the Fed don’t believe Trump policies.
The Fed’s inflation numbers go from 3 percent down to 2 percent over the next three years. And that’s okay.
But the gap between Mr. Trump’s economy, which he expects to grow by 3 percent to 4 percent, and the Fed’s view of less than 2 percent, is troublesome.
And it suggests that the central bank opposes the president’s policies.
This is not good.
It’s one of many reasons why Mr. Powell should’ve resigned months ago.
And, to restate the obvious, Mr. Trump has the authority to fire President Biden’s Fed appointee, Lisa Cook, for her credibly alleged mortgage fraud. If Mr. Powell had a backbone, he would’ve suspended Ms. Cook during the investigation.
Not to mention that as Mr. Powell delivered his same-old press remarks, stocks went down, and rates went up. Also not good.
It’s important that Trump economist Stephen Miran has taken a leave of absence from the administration to fill a vacant slot at the Fed for at least four months.
Mr. Miran, in my judgment, was the big hero today for his dissent and rejection of Mr. Powell’s Fed groupthink.
Mr. Trump has every right to appoint people to important agencies like the Fed in furtherance of his own policies.
Mr. Miran promptly dissented from today’s Federal Open Market Committee decision, saying it should have cut by 50 basis points instead of 25.
Hat-tip to The New York Sun for suggesting that the White House is actually risking its own independence by sending Mr. Miran to a Fed that opposes free-market tax cuts and deregulation — not the other way around.
Meanwhile, Mr. Powell’s mismanagement of the Federal Reserve is beyond the pale.
In recent years, the central bank lost nearly $200 billion from a mismatch of their assets and liabilities.
The money managers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are losing money on a daily basis. They have been paying banks 4.5 percent, but their portfolio generates only 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the Fed’s bond portfolio is completely under water, with some estimating its losses at $250 billion.
It’s like the savings and loan crash of the 1980s. Or the failing Silicon Valley Bank crash a couple years ago.
So folks should cheer that interest rates are headed lower.
And they should also cheer that in a few months Mr. Trump will appoint his own Fed chairman, to help him achieve his splendid economic growth policies.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

