The author provides a reminder that the Fed is designed to be immune from political pressures. Congress designed it that way.
This applies to both 2301 and 2302.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, as amended by both parties, created
an independent central bank that could operate outside of politics—i.e.,
it could do things frowned upon by Congress and the public. The act, as
amended in 1977, commands the Fed to promote "the goals of maximum
employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." The
message going out from Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Jon Kyl, and Eric
Cantor was: Don't do as you're told.
"You don't want to turn over monetary policy to the whims
of political and maybe even populist views of the time," says Tony
Fratto, a spokesman for the Treasury Department in the George W. Bush
administration. "This criticism from Republicans is way off-base. I
think it's evidence of some misunderstanding of the Fed's statutory
mandate."
