A.G. Gancarski
The Republican front-runner for Florida Governor isn’t ready to give the Chair of the Federal Reserve his walking papers yet.
During comments this week to The Hill, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds said he was “not there yet” when it came to firing Jerome Powell, which was a concept teased this week by the Donald Trump administration amid the President’s ongoing frustrations that interest rates aren’t being cut. And Donalds seems willing to let him finish his term, which runs until next year.
“I’m not there yet,” the Naples Republican said regarding Powell being fired, adding that for him, it “probably won’t get to that point.”
Trump has nicknamed Powell “Too Late” for his refusal to cut rates amid the on-again/off-again threat of tariffs that has shaken equity markets at various points this year.
Yet Donalds lays the blame for interest rates less with the Fed and more with Congress, which he says is responsible for the ongoing fiscal profligacy that increasingly defines the American fiscal outlook.
“I think the greater issue is Congress being smart with the people’s money going forward,” Donalds said, specifically referring to “long-term interest rates and intermediate rates.”
“My opinion is whoever’s Fed Chairman, yeah, they might move faster around the short-term rate, but the long-term rate problem is a significant problem. And that’s Congress’s fault, not doing its job, managing the purse strings of the government.”
Donalds said credit downgrades by ratings agencies weren’t driven by “politics” or “Fed Chairmen,” but by the “inability of the federal government to live within its fiscal means.”
