Month: September 2023

The Federal Reserve said in a statement on Wednesday that it will pausing its extended campaign against inflation, leaving interest rates unchanged and giving borrowers a break after 11 increases since March 2022. They indicated, however, that one more interest rate hike is expected by year’s end.  Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters in a press conference: “We’re prepared to raise rates further, if appropriate.”

The Fed statement said: “Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace. Job gains have slowed in recent months but remain strong, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation remains elevated.” The Fed said it will hold the federal funds rate in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, the same level as it announced at its last meeting in July. The current U.S. annual inflation rate of 3.7% recorded in August is higher than the Fed’s goal of 2%, but it is much lower than the 8.3% recorded in August 2022.

Even though the Fed isn’t boosting rates, borrowing costs are at their highest levels in 22 years. The central bank is seeking to lessen demand for purchases like homes and cars.  According to projections, the Fed will raise interest rates to a median of 5.6% by the end of this year and said two rate cuts are likely in 2024, half of the number of cuts projected in June. The Fed statement said: “In determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2% over time, the committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.”

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Attorney General Merrick Garland testified Wednesday morning during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, where Republican lawmakers grilled him over his department’s handling of criminal probes into former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, the events of Jan. 6 and other high-profile investigations – all while Democrats charged the GOP with abusing the process. Garland’s appearance in front of the Judiciary Committee is his first since he appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump in his handling of classified documents and his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the cases connected with former President Donald Trump, and alleged it handed President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, a “sweetheart deal” that was rejected by a federal judge. Despite the questioning, Garland said he would not comment about ongoing investigations into Trump and Hunter Biden, frustrating some Republicans. He also didn’t engage in GOP attacks against special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump.

Meanwhile Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, attacked Jordan in his opening statement and asserted that nearly all of the chair’s statements have already been refuted in testimony. Nadler said: “They have used their power to stage one political stunt after another. They have wasted countless taxpayers’ dollars on baseless investigations into President Biden and his family to find evidence in an absurd impeachment, desperate to distract from the mounting legal peril facing Donald Trump.”

Repeatedly, Garland insisted that he did not ask questions about the Hunter Biden case because he made a promise not to weigh in. Garland said no one from the White House or connected with President Joe Biden had contacted him about the cases into Hunter Biden or Trump: “Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate. As the president himself has said, and I reaffirm here today: I am not the President’s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.”

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