Economists Weigh In On Trump’s Fed Pick: ‘An Ideologue, Charlatan, And Hack’ And More

Stephen Moore, President Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve’s influential board of governors, is generally recognized in economic circles as a partisan talking head rather than a serious policy expert. In the wake of his nomination to a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, economics experts have been weighing in on the choice, and generally speaking, the response has not been positive, as Vanity Fair reports.

“Call your favorite economist. Whether they’re left, right, libertarian or socialist, none of them will endorse Stephen Moore for the Fed. He’s manifestly unqualified,” tweeted economics professor and Brookings Institute fellow Justing Wolfers. Wolfers’s statement came within a litany of critical tweets which dredged up twenty years of claims, decisions, and predictions accumulated by Moore over his career.

Moore has generally built that career around appearing on television, in print, and online as a vocal advocate for conservative economic principles. He has served with a number of prominent conservative think tanks, including the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Regardless, mainstream economists and thinkers are far from convinced of his credentials for the board of governors.

“Stephen Moore is a particularly poor choice for the Federal Reserve Board,” Tim Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, told The New York Times.

“He appears more devoted to pursuing a far-right economic agenda than willing to understand the complexity of economic policy.”

Another professor, the University of Chicago’s Steven Durlauf doubled down on that sentiment, calling Moore “an ideologue, charlatan, and hack,” before going on to suggest that other economists within the Trump administration should resign in response to the nomination.

"His seeming willingness to interpret any and all economic data so as to tell a story favorable to tax cuts and unfavorable to government spending marks him more as an ideologically motivated pundit than a true economist." – @Noahpinion https://t.co/uZ1OTot8Ty

— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) March 22, 2019

Moore’s sudden ascendancy the big leagues of economic policy is being largely characterized as driven by an impression Trump developed watching him on television. Bloomberg reported recently that Larry Kudlow, the president’s chief economic advisor, shared with Trump an op-ed piece co-authored by Moore celebrating the Trump administration’s economic policies and in fact blaming the Federal Reserve for the economy’s failure to thrive as a result of them.

Trump reportedly showed regret in not naming Moore chairman of the Fed and then suggested they explore Moore’s interest in a seat on the board. The rest, it seems, was history, as Moore is now poised to have a major impact in U.S. economy going forward.

The job of the Federal Reserve is to manage that economy. The overall goal is essentially to provide a maximum level of employment across the country and to maintain pricing stability as well. The Fed is also the nation’s primary banking regulator, playing a crucial role in preventing, or addressing, large scale economic turmoil such as that generated by the crash that occurred in 2008.