Opposition To Powell’s Renomination Crosses The Aisle As Sen. Rick Scott Joins Warren In Opposition

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s worst nightmare is starting to become a reality.

A few weeks ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sandbagged Powell during an otherwise routine testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. After insisting that the Powell Fed’s easy money policy elevated the interests of big business over the needs of main street, before declaring Powell a “dangerous” man who could “not be trusted” to run the world’s most important central bank.

Powell responded by taking dramatic action to satisfy his critics, who had seized upon financial disclosure reports from 20202 showing that certain (soon to be former) Fed presidents had engaged in single-stock day trading, raising concerns about conflicts of interests. By the time the dust had cleared, two regional Fed bank presidents had handed in their resignation. Unfortunately, Powell couldn’t escape the wrath of the press, as his own multimillion dollar trades were disclosed shortly thereafter.

At this point, as we have joked, if the conspiracy to rid the FOMC of all of its most influential “hawks” – who could send the economy into a tailspin by voting to raise rates even just once – all that’s really left is to expose the E*Trade account of Esther George.

Desperate to try and mitigate the scandal engulfing the Fed, Powell sought to appease his critics by ordering an ethics investigation which eventually determined that Fed officials can’t actively trade in stocks bonds or anything else that’s not a mutual fund. The rules are much more restrictive than what Congress faces.

But unfortunately for Powell, nobody can un-ring that bell. Too many people are worried that the Fed is just blindly pumping markets and dumping more capital in banks’ reserves to no real effect in the real economy.

It’s perhaps with this in mind that GOP Sen. Rick Scott, who unlike Warren isn’t a member of the Senate Finance Committee, has joined a small but growing group of senators who have serious misgivings about Powell’s leadership.

With #Bidenflation raging, @federalreserve Chair Powell has failed to show independence & that he’s working for the American people, not Biden & socialist Democrats. Unless he proves he’ll fight for families, I won’t support him for another term. https://t.co/h5YynUrDGr

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 26, 2021

Given’s Sen. Scott’s influence in the state of Florida, which has seemingly defied all COVID recommendations and still has one of the lowest rates of spread in the country, his impact on Powell’s chances could have a serious impact.

But after all the business and economy-killing measures from the Fed, Sen. Rick Scott has officially declared – after Warren – that he will note support him.

Read the brief statement below:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Rick Scott sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell making it clear that he will not support Chair Powell for another term as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve unless he shows that the Federal Reserve is an independent agency working in the best interests of American families. Throughout this year, Senator Scott has repeatedly expressed his frustration with Chair Powell’s blind obedience to the failed policies and agenda of President Biden and the Democrats, and his lack of independent leadership to mitigate the harmful impacts of rising inflation. As hardworking families across America continue to suffer because of skyrocketing inflation, a supply chain crisis, a workforce disaster and a historical amount of federal debt, Chair Powell has continued to direct the Federal Reserve to manipulate markets with huge treasury bond purchases and done nothing to protect families.

But if nothing else,Scott’s letter illustrates how quickly the political establishment has turned on Powell – not that the Fed chief is blameless in all this. But there was a time – not that long ago – when he enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

Especially after Powell rattled markets a bit last week by offering a rare bit of “honestly”, confirming the taper time line, the Fed chairman simply may have made too many enemies during his time running the Fed by helping to debase the dollar with unprecedented volumes of helicopter money and debt monetization although that doesn’t really matter.

In other reports, President Biden is taking this opposition seriously, and is planning to meet with some alternative candidates in the coming weeks.