Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Against Cain as Fed Chief? Then Oppose Him Now

Imagine how the markets might react if Herman Cain or Stephen Moore replaced Jerome Powell.

April 5, 2019 at 7:40 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Herman Cain at a political rally in 2012.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump says he intends to nominate Herman Cain, a business executive and former Republican presidential candidate, and Stephen Moore, an economics commentator and activist who focuses on tax policy, for seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Senate should not confirm them, even if some of the commentary opposing them has been off the mark.

Critics point out that neither man holds a doctorate in economics. But while it is important that the Fed committee that sets monetary policy has a sufficient number of Ph.D. economists, not every Fed governor or regional Fed bank president needs to be an economist with a record of peer-reviewed publications. (Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself does not have a doctorate in economics.)