Vice President Mike Pence said Friday the Federal Reserve should consider lowering the interest rate following a stellar jobs report and continued U.S. economic growth.
“I think it might be time for us to consider lowering interest rates. We just don’t see any inflation in this economy at all,” Mr. Pence said in an interview with CNBC’s Eamon Javers.
“We’re seeing jobs being created all over the country … [and that] should be an encouragement to every American and also to people that operate our monetary policies,” Pence continued.
This echoes calls made by President Trump, who has condemned the Federal Reserve’s “unnecessary and destructive actions” when raising interest rates.
The Fed chose to keep rates steady and announced it expected not to raise them in 2019, but the president has criticized the board for raising rates four times last year, calling them “crazy” in October after its fourth hike.
Mr. Trump even went as far as to blame the Federal Reserve in late March for preventing the country’s 2018 gross domestic product from hitting 4 percent.
“If we didn’t have somebody raising interest rates and do quantitative tightening, we would have been over 4 [percent] instead of at 3.1 [percent]” in terms of growth, Mr. Trump told Fox Business. “The world is slowing, but we’re not slowing.”
Mr. Pence’s comments come after an April job report found U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs last month, dropping unemployment to the lowest number seen since 1969.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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