Warren argues Federal Reserve interest rate hikes should stop

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Sunday argued that the Federal Reserve should stop hiking interest rates in an effort to control high inflation. 

“I do not think he should raise rates,” Warren said of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’ve been in the camp for a long time that these extraordinary rate increases that he has taken on these extreme rate increases are something that he should not be doing.”

Powell and the central bank have been under scrutiny after upping interest rates to try and bring down inflation. In recent days, the central bank has also come into focus after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and New York’s Signature Bank. 

The Federal Reserve is scheduled to meet later this week and could greenlight another interest rate hike.

Warren said Sunday that Powell is “failing” in his responsibilities “both as the oversight manager of these big banks … and also what he’s doing with inflation.” 

“Yes, he is responsible for dealing with inflation, but he is also responsible for employment. And what chair Powell is trying to do — and he has said fairly explicitly is that they are trying to, in effect, slow down the economy so that — this is, by the Fed’s own estimate — 2 million people will lose their jobs,” Warren, a frequent critic of the Federal Reserve chair, said. 

“There are other drivers of the cost increase. For example, price gouging, supply chain kinks, the war in Ukraine. Raising interest rates doesn’t do anything to solve those problems. All it does, at least by the way the chair wants to do this, is put millions of people out of work,” the senator said.