Authors:

  • Paul Tucker

Excerpt

May 10, 2024, Opinion: "Stories have been swirling that people around Donald Trump, perhaps including the former president himself, plan to curtail or even end the Federal Reserve'sIndependence if he regains the White House. The stakes are high for the country’s deepest values, its prosperity, and even for national security and America’s position in the world.  A fundamental principle of the separation of powers is that an elected assembly should decide taxes. By that standard, the last person who should control the monetary levers is the president (and his or her outriders). The printing press is always latently an instrument of taxation because it can unleash surprise inflation. Control of it would enable any president, right or left, to bypass Congress to pursue their pet projects."