US is “on an unsustainable fiscal path, there’s no hiding from it.”
I have to say, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is a breath of fresh air when he talks, after the near-physical pain I experienced listening to his last three predecessors. I actually get what he is saying, even if it’s a little twisted. I can make out his veiled disdain for fancy but dubious economic theories and iffy forecasts. And I get to look forward to some zingers when I least expect them – such as at today’s press conference, when he valiantly defended the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, core PCE, by saying that it “tends to run a little lower, but that’s not why we pick it.”
About that wildly ballooning federal deficit:
Even though the question came at the end of the press conference, I’m pulling it to the top because it’s so important. Asked if fiscal policy – the ballooning deficit, after tax cuts and spending increases – comes up a lot at FOMC meetings, he said:
“It doesn’t really come up. It’s not really our job…. We don’t have responsibility for fiscal policy. But in the longer run, fiscal policy will have a significant impact on the economy, so for that reason, I think, my predecessors have commented on fiscal policy, but they have commented on it at a high level rather than trying to get involved in particular measures.
“My plan is to stick to the same approach, and stay in our lane. So I would just say, it’s no secret, it’s been true for a long time, that with our uniquely expensive healthcare delivery system and the aging of our population, we’ve been on an unsustainable fiscal path for a long time. And there is no hiding from it, and we will have to face that, and I think the sooner the better.
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