Senate Confirms Fed Economist Christopher Waller to Board Seat

Christopher Waller

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not had the votes to be able to confirm Judy Shelton, who is occasionally in favor of the gold standard,  for a Federal Reserve Board seat but an economist, who supports mad money printing, managed to get through the Senate confirmation process.

Christopher Waller, the research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, was confirmed on a 48-47 vote to a term that runs through January 2030.

This is all you need to know about Waller. Bloomberg reports:

Waller, 60, [holds the] view of the past three years that policy is in a new regime -- where higher interest rates aren’t needed. 

“We didn’t see any overheating in the economy coming, so the question was: why are we raising rates?’’ Waller said in an interview June 25 with Bloomberg Radio’s Kathleen Hays. “We didn’t see any reason to raise rates just for the sake of raising rates.’’

That is let the money pumps pump.

Republicans could try to confirm Shelton early in the next term of Congress, notes The Wall Street Journal. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), who is opposed to Shelton’s nomination, is retiring and will be replaced in January by Republican Sen.-elect Bill Hagerty. That could give Republicans as many as 50 votes—subject to the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5—to support Shelton with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie in her favor.

There would be a narrow window for that to happen. It would require the White House to submit the nomination anew and the Senate to vote before Trump leaves office Jan. 20.

-RW