Steve Benen tees off on President Trump’s nomination of Stephen Moore to the Fed Reserve Board:
But even putting that aside, Stephen Moore isn’t just another unfortunate selection for the amateur president. He is a uniquely ridiculous choice – quite possibly the least defensible of the Trump presidency to date.
To say it’s difficult to know where to start with Moore’s c.v. is to be quite literal. It matters, obviously, that he’s not an economist and knows very little about what the Federal Reserve does. But it also matters that Moore has been wrong about practically everything for many years. It matters that he appears to be a Trump sycophant. It matters that Moore has had a hand in some spectacular economic failures. It matters that Moore’s economic opinions tend to echo Republican talking pointswhile “flying in the face of economic theory.”
It matters that Moore has a reputation for misstating basic factual details. It matters that his economic views tend to vary based on the party of the president at the time. It matters that the White House has made the finance industry nervous with this nomination. It matters that actual economists have been apoplectic about Trump’s selection of Moore, (One scholar argued, “This is truly an appalling appointment. An ideologue, charlatan, and hack. Frankly so bad the putatively serious economists in Trump administration should resign as matter of honor.”)
It matters that Moore has embarrassed himself on television over and over again. It matters that Moore, at the height of the Great Recession, turned to “Atlas Shrugged” as an economic guide. It matters that Moore’s own finances are a mess – why the White House refuses to vet its nominees in advance is a mystery – owing $75,000 in unpaid federal taxes, interest, and penalties.
Slate’s recent summary struck me as notable: “Stephen Moore is a living embodiment of the sucking intellectual void at the core of conservative economics, an inept pundit who has spent his career evangelizing the supply-side dogma that tax cuts pay for themselves while shilling for Republican officeholders, all from well-paid perches at think tanks and in the media.”
I think we may see Mr. Moore confirmed, despite his apparently glaring deficiencies, because he appears to be an acolyte to the Holy Economic Faith of the Republican Party: tax cuts, Laffer Curves, and trickle-down economics. This is important because such unreasoning beliefs are difficult to rebuff. Reason has little effect on them. They have theoretical underpinnings, much like theology, which gives them an air of respectability for all concerned, including the leaders. Witness the smoking disaster of Brownback’s Kansas. He should have known better.
No one’s really peeking behind their curtain.
So I fear we’re really going to have to go through another recession in order for the Republicans to even consider revising their faith, not belief, but faith in these Holy Economic Tenets.
And, in the meantime, I fear Mr. Moore will get his seat on the Fed Reserve Board. His lack of economics training may be the only thing that’ll hold him back, and I don’t know that’ll stick in the Republicans’ craw enough to stop his ride.
