Powell packed in 98 personal phone calls and meetings with lawmakers last year — nearly four times as many as his predecessor, Janet Yellen, over the same period during her first year on the job. He slips in phone calls while prepping for the central bank’s policy-setting meetings. He attends early breakfasts and late dinners. His record is six meetings with lawmakers in one day.
“He’s much more direct in answering questions, much more regularly engaged in the Hill conversations with policymakers than what I’ve seen over the last decade and a half that I’ve been involved in Fed oversight,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the ranking member on the Financial Services Committee.
A spokeswoman for the Fed declined to comment for this story. But the outreach to Capitol Hill comes as the Fed could use a few friends in Washington. Since Powell began his campaign, the central bank has entered the crosshairs of the Trump White House, and his job has been in jeopardy. Building relationships with Congress can help blunt those attacks — and provide a potential insurance policy if President Donald Trump attempts to get rid of Powell, experts said.
Trump lashed out as the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate four times last year, pulling the reins on the economy just as the president and the Republican-controlled Congress were trying to supercharge growth with their hard-won tax cut during a crucial midterm election year. Trump criticized the rate hikes as “too aggressive” to Reuters and told The Washington Post that the Fed was a bigger problem than China. In that same interview, Trump declared he was “not even a little bit happy” with the choice of Powell for chairman.
By December, Trump reportedly asked his advisors whether he had the authority to fire the Fed chairman. In January, amid mounting public pressure, volatile financial markets and an uncertain global outlook, the central bank paused the stairstep rate hikes. Now, the central bank says, it is practicing patience.
“The Fed certainly can’t count on the administration to have its back,” said Michael Feroli, chief economist at J.P. Morgan. “So it makes sense to find allies on the Hill.”
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