The Senate Needs to Shore Up the Federal Reserve
By failing to confirm key nominees, legislators are leaving the central bank poorly prepared for a momentous policy-making meeting.
Confirm her already.
Photographer: Ken Cedeno/Pool/Getty ImagesThe U.S. Federal Reserve’s next policy-making meeting in mid-March will be one of the most consequential in recent memory, with inflation running at a 40-year high and Europe riven by armed conflict. Yet with several nominations stuck in the Senate, the central bank is troublingly under-prepared to rise to the occasion. It’s a weakness that legislators must urgently resolve.
The Biden administration has nominated five candidates to the Fed’s Board of Governors. They include Jerome Powell to continue as chair, Lael Brainard (currently a governor) as vice chair, Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson as governors, and Sarah Bloom Raskin as vice chair in charge of bank supervision. All are excellent choices, but Republican opposition to Raskin is holding up the whole process.