Fed Chair Powell: It’s on Congress to Figure Out How to Get Us Back on a Sustainable Debt Path

GUIDA: “Hi, Victoria Guida with Politico. I wanted to ask, Congress is currently debating spending cuts, alongside expending — extending the tax cuts, and I know you have talked many times about how the path of the debt is unsustainable, but given that we’re also talking right now about the economy slowing, potentially even recession, I was just wondering, is there a danger that spending cuts now could slow growth a lot more?”

Powell: “You know, we don’t give Congress fiscal advice. They’re going to do — we take what they do as a given and we put it in our models and in our assessment of the economy. So, I wouldn’t want to speculate on that. I think we do know that the debt is on an unsustainable level — on an unsustainable path, not at an unsustainable level, but an unsustainable path, and it’s on Congress to figure out how to get us back on a sustainable path and, you know, it’s not up to us to give them advice.”

GUIDA: “Do you think that they should take macroeconomic conditions into account as they look at this?”

Powell: “I think they don’t need my advice and our advice on how to do fiscal policy, any more than we need their advice on monetary policy.”