Staff Reports
Kevin Hassett, the economist who once sat in the West Wing as National Economic Council director, went on Fox this weekend and said what a lot of working Americans have been muttering at kitchen tables for years: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should step down. It’s blunt, personal and meant to sting — not because Hassett woke up with a grudge, but because millions of families are still paying for what feels like policymaking gone sideways.
Why Hassett says the Fed blew it
Hassett’s charge is simple: the Fed misread inflation, kept policy too loose for too long, and then delivered aggressive rate hikes that felt like whiplash. That combo — delayed tightening followed by sharp increases — has business owners, homeowners and savers all taking hits at once. When you take an economy that was already hot from fiscal stimulus and add years of ultra-cheap money, you don’t get a neat textbook correction; you get higher prices, volatile markets, and higher borrowing costs for ordinary folks.
What this actually looks like at ground level
Go into any grocery store or car lot and you’ll see the results. A household that tightened its belt can watch food and fuel eats up more of the paycheck; a young couple notebooks the mortgage rate they can’t afford; a small contractor delays hiring because a loan now costs more. These aren’t numbers in a Fed spreadsheet — they’re missed birthdays, delayed home improvements, folks skipping doctor visits because the bill looks worse this month.
Accountability and the limits of Fed independence
The Fed is supposed to be independent, but independence isn’t a license to be unaccountable. Powell answers to the President and the Senate, and he still faces oversight from Congress. If the leadership repeatedly makes choices that leave workers worse off, elected officials — the people who sign the paychecks — have a duty to question why and demand fixes, not platitudes.
Hassett’s call for resignation isn’t just partisan theater. It’s a political trial balloon that forces a conversation about who pays when policy decisions go wrong. If Washington won’t protect Main Street, who will? Are we going to keep pretending remote technocrats are above consequence while everyday Americans pick up the tab?
