Steve Moore, President Trump’s choice for a spot on the Federal Reserve Board, has withdrawn his name from consideration. More’s the pity. The famed supply-side economics guru, Heritage scholar and a major designer of President Trump’s highly successful tax-cut program was the victim of a merciless mud assault by liberal and establishment economists ever since the president said he planned to nominate him.
The Washington Post’s influential Robert Samuelson launched the first big grenade, proclaiming Moore was too partisan and plainly “unqualified for the job.” If confirmed, he “could spawn a global financial calamity,” an accusation that became a rallying cry for Moore’s enemies.
But how would just one of 12-voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s most important component, cause such devastation? Once a governor, Samuelson palpably shuddered, there is a “scary possibility” that the president would fire Chairman Lewis Powell, whom Trump blames for having raised interest rates, and replace him with the terribly dangerous Moore, who shares Trump’s viewpoint. Samuelson then quoted other detractors who tarred him as “manifestly” unfit and an “appalling” choice.
Foes were even publicizing a previous dispute over alimony and child support payments, although Moore’s ex-wife said that problem had been settled amicably. Having failed to unhorse him with these heavy weapons, Moore’s detractors finally uncovered some controversial quotes, many more than two decades old, in which he seemed to mock women wanting to become warriors or urged them to be stay at home moms. He apologized for some of his past comments. But the Senate Democrats, along with some weak-kneed GOP colleagues, used this "anti-female" issue as a major excuse to block the appointment, even though it had zero to do with his economic chops.
What Moore’s liberal critics were really steamed about is that he is a supply-sider and has proved to be far more right on economic matters than they have been over the years. Along with Arthur Laffer, the highly credentialed father of supply-side economics, and Larry Kudlow, director of the President’s National Economic Council, Moore has been instrumental in persuading the Republican party to embrace a pro-growth economic agenda with its emphasis on deregulation and low tax rates for both business and individuals, a formula which has proved wildly successful. (See Kudlow’s and Domitrovic’s JFK and the Reagan Revolution.)
Moore’s criticism of Powell reveals, if anything, that he’d be a boon to the Fed, since the Fed chairman finally agreed with Moore and stopped implying the Fed would continue to raise interest rates when such pronouncements were clearly sinking the markets. After Powell reversed himself and the markets started surging again, Moore couldn’t resist a zinger: The “amateur economist” in the White House proved wiser than Chairman Powell and his “Ph.D. economists.”
Tart, yes, but why were Samuelson and his buddies still disparaging Moore for being right when Powell was so obviously wrong? How can that possibly be disqualifying? With a smart dissenter on the Fed, Powell’s decision making would likely have noticeably improved. Of course, Moore’s liberal critics have also been dumping on the administration’s tax plan, knowing Moore was a major force behind its passage.
Indeed, the president’s tax-cut legislation appeared to be dying until Laffer, Kudlow and Moore decided to write a piece that ran in The New York Times on April 19, 2017.
With a sense of urgency, they outlined what would become the core of the tax-reform program that eventually passed the Congress: easing major tax and regulatory burdens on large and small businesses, inducing overseas American corporations and money to come home, and giving support for a middle-class tax cut. They also offered critical tactical advice, insisting that tax reform “should be kept as simple and understandable to voters as possible,” which also meant as few moving parts as possible.
The column lit a fire under the White House and influential Republicans in Congress and across the country. Political journalist Fred Barnes called it the “op-ed that changed the world.”
And so it did. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, cut the column out of the Times that morning, and, as Laffer and Moore relate in their book, Trumponomics, “put it at the top of a stack of must-read items for the president…” He read it, marked it up and called a meeting with his legislative, political and economic team. Pointing to the article, he stressed: “This is the way we are going to get it done.”
Republican lawmakers, with the Times’ column and Trump’s enthusiasm as their inspiration, passed the bill in December, and though it had evolved in many ways, the essence was contained in that historic essay. The results are pretty well known: the lowest unemployment rate for decades, especially among blacks and Hispanics, a surge in business investment, jobs and the labor participation rate, rising wages across the economic spectrum, explosive growth in wealth for millions of Americans with 401K savings plans, etc.
Even some very prominent nay-sayers have changed their minds. Liberal economist Alan Blinder, who still loves Obamanomics, now lavishly lauds the administration’s economic policies. And the tax cuts, he concedes, did not cause inflation as he and his fellow liberals feared. Instead they “have boosted economic growth” — just as the supply-siders predicted.
Moore has been a huge part of that success. It’s too bad the Senate refused to reward him.
Allan Ryskind is a former editor and owner of Human Events, a favorite publication of President Ronald Reagan. His latest book, Hollywood Traitors, reveals the strong hold the Stalinist-controlled Communist party in America had on the movie industry from the 1930s through 1947.
