Less than a week after taking his seat, Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran on Monday outlined the reasons why he thinks the central bank’s benchmark interest rate is far too high and should be lowered aggressively.
Changes in tax and immigration policy along with easing rental costs, deregulation and incoming revenue for tariffs are creating a different economic landscape that allow the Fed to cut its benchmark rate by nearly 2 percentage points from its current level, the central banker said in remarks before the Economic Club of New York.
“The Federal Reserve has been entrusted with the important goal of promoting price stability for the good of all American households and businesses, and I am committed to bringing inflation sustainably back to 2 percent,” he said. “However, leaving policy restrictive by such a large degree brings significant risks for the Fed’s employment mandate.”
Miran sees the confluence of policy changes from the White House lowering the neutral level of interest that neither restricts nor promotes growth. In remarks heavy with data and citations on theory and interest rate models such as the Taylor Rule, Miran said current monetary policy is significantly more restrictive than the prevailing attitude among his fellow policymakers.
