The Fed Isn’t the Tax Cut’s Enemy
Officials are open to the possibility that the tax cut will raise the economy’s potential growth rate, although it isn’t their base case
conventional wisdom is that this is the wrong time for Republicans to cut taxes by $1.4 trillion over the next decade. The fiscal stimulus will overheat the economy and force the Federal Reserve to slow it down by raising interest rates more aggressively.
inflation is still too low, and that completely changes the equation: It suggests overheating is to be welcomed, not resisted.
officials are open to the possibility that the tax cut will raise the economy’s potential growth rate, which means faster growth wouldn’t necessarily lead to more inflation.
.. Ms. Yellen and her likely successor, Fed governor Jerome Powell, aren’t yet the party poopers many supply-side tax cut advocates feared.
.. [Larry Kudlow: ] The real test, he said, is how the Fed reacts if growth tops 3%
.. By 2020 Fed officials expect their benchmark federal-funds rate to reach 3.1%, which would be above the 2.8% they expect to prevail in a fully-employed economy growing normally
.. Ms. Yellen made it clear she didn’t agree with Mr. Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the tax cut would pay for itself, and warned it may be “taking what is already a significant [debt] problem and making it worse.”