Government financing needs play no role in the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decisions, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said after the central bank held rates steady for the fifth meeting in a row.
Concurrently, President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that the Fed instead lower interest rates to make it cheaper for the government to service its debts. But Powell on Wednesday said that this wasn’t the concern of the central bank.
“We have a mandate—and that’s maximum employment and price stability. And it is not something we do to consider the cost to the government of our rate changes,” Powell said during a press conference following the latest meeting of the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)….