Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark interest rates this summer. https://t.co/dC4qAXKxwx — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 31, 2022“My plan to address inflation starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence,” Biden said. It also represented something of a reversal by Biden as inflation weighs heavily on voters’ minds. “My predecessor demeaned the Fed, and past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation,” Biden said in an op-ed posted May 30 by The Wall Street Journal. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to lower interest rates to spur the economy before Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign.

Source: Wall Street Journal June 01, 2022 03:20 UTC