It’s hard to believe that a couple years ago Time magazine considered naming the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, as its Person of the Year. He may well have won, if it hadn’t been for someone named Taylor Swift.

Mr. Powell has been idolized by the left for one reason: He’s been a thorn in the side of President Trump for years. If Mr. Trump says “ying,” Mr. Powell says “yang.”

Last week Mr. Powell finally lowered the federal funds rate, and better late than never. Yet his speech to the press was a tirade against Trumponomics. 

He was filled with doom and gloom in his statement, telling global investors that the economy is growing at only 1.6 percent so far this year and is expected to grow 1.6 percent next year.

What country was he talking about? Afghanistan?

Here are the facts: In the second quarter of this year, the American economy grew by 3.3 percent, and with a few weeks to go in the third quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is forecasting 3 percent growth — twice Mr. Powell’s cracked crystal ball.

Mr. Powell also never mentioned that real household incomes are up $1,100 for the first seven months of 2025. He never mentioned that capital investment — the seed corn of a growing economy — has been ramped up, with hundreds of billions of dollars pledged next year.

He attacks Mr. Trump’s tariffs and more restrictive immigration policies as restricting growth — and he has a point that those have slightly slowed growth. 

Yet he never mentioned the Trump tax cuts, the immediate expensing for capital purchases (which has spurred an investment boom), or the deregulations that could save up to $1 trillion this year. 

Nor did he mention that Mr. Trump’s pro-energy policies have increased American production of oil and gas to record highs, or that the area where job growth is way down is in government employment — which is GOOD for the economy.

There’s also something almost comical about a Fed chairman who let inflation soar by 21 percent during President Biden’s four years in office — the highest rates in nearly 40 years, dating back to Jimmy Carter’s stagflation. 

He promised inflation was “transitory” — oops. Tell that to people whose grocery bills rose by one-third in four years.

He accommodated the disastrous lockdowns of the economy with nary a word of objection by shoveling trillions of dollars into the economy in 2020 and 2021. 

The result: Americans saw a three-year crash in their after-inflation incomes. It was right and proper that Americans chased Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris out the door, but here we are nine months later, and Mr. Powell is still around.

Mr. Powell is attacked by Mr. Trump as “Too Late Jerome.” Yet in reality he’s “Too Wrong Powell.” His job, as a former World Bank president, David Malpass, notes, should be “to defend the dollar and keep it stable in value.” 

Steve Forbes adds that Mr. Powell has followed the wrongheaded creed of the 300 Ph.D. economists over at the Fed’s temple that growth causes inflation.

He has a bully pulpit that can and should be used to attack the dangerous levels of government debt and deficit spending. He rarely does.

Mr. Powell’s defenders counter any criticism of the Fed by reflexively arguing that the central bank should be independent. Yes.

Yet it should also be competent and accountable. 

Under Mr. Powell’s reign of error, the central bank has been neither. He makes up monetary policy as he goes along, and that has increased the instability of the American economy and financial markets.

He has been a walking billboard for a rules-based monetary policy — perhaps a gold or commodity standard.

Mr. Powell should admit he’s in over his head and exit stage left now before he does more harm. Yet he lives in a press-created delusion that he’s the last line of defense against Mr. Trump. 

The good news is, at least he will be gone in seven months. Hopefully the next Fed chairman will learn from his series of blunders.

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