Heritage Foundation, Willis Bretz
Stephen Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has been a long-time supporter of Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump on Friday nominated former Wall Street Journal editorial writer Stephen Moore to a seat on the Federal Reserve board in his most controversial choice to the central bank so far.
It is my pleasure to announce that @StephenMoore, a very respected Economist, will be nominated to serve on the Fed Board. I have known Steve for a long time – and have no doubt he will be an outstanding choice!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2019
Experts said that Moore’s nomination would be controversial because he is so political but that he may be able to squeak through a Republican-controlled Senate.
“I think Moore is so closely identified with Trump’s policies that he’ll become a lightning rod in the confirmation hearings,” said Greg Valliere, chief strategist for AGF Investments.
Moore has recently been very critical of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues, arguing last week that the central bank was slowing the economy in an opinion article titled, “The Fed Is a Threat to Growth.” He argued the Fed should link interest-rate policy to real-time changes in commodity prices.
This fits closely with Trump’s sharp criticism of the Fed.
Trump has railed against the Fed since last summer even though he nominated four out of the current five members of the Fed board. The president called the Fed “his biggest threat.”
Moore has been something of a Washington fixture since the 1980s. He worked for Art Laffer, the economist influential with President Ronald Reagan, who is best known for the Laffer curve that argued tax cuts would increase government revenue.
Moore, 59, also helped to found the Club for Growth, a Super PAC that helped elect conservatives to Congress, and then became a editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. He is now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Moore worked on the Trump campaign and co-authored a book with Laffer called “Trumponomics, Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”
Valliere noted that Moore disagrees with Trump’s trade policies. In an interview on CNN International this week, Moore called himself “a free-trader.”
Moore is also a friend of top White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow.
Other experts said they thought Moore’s nomination would be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate.
“The vote will probably be close on party lines but we would expect him to get through,” said Ian Katz of Capital Alpha Partners.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.33% dropped over 400 points on concern about the global economy, heightened by weak data coming from Germany and to a lesser extent the U.S.
Bloomberg News on Thursday night had reported Trump was considering Moore.
