Bessent calls to take power away from the Fed

Source: CNN Business

Updated Sep 5, 2025, 3:02 PM ET
PUBLISHED Sep 5, 2025, 1:22 PM ET


Washington — The Federal Reserve must be relieved of its duties regulating the nation’s banks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in an essay published Friday.

Bessent wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the central bank has veered away from what he described as its core mission of promoting full employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates. President Donald Trump’s top economic official is doubling down on an idea he has trumpeted for months: The Fed has overstepped its bounds by taking on banking regulation, and that must stop.

“The Fed now regulates, lends to and sets the profitability calculus for the banks it oversees, an unavoidable conflict that blurs accountability and jeopardizes independence,” Bessent wrote. “There must also be an honest, independent, nonpartisan review of the entire institution, including monetary policy, regulation, communications, staffing and research.”

When the Fed was created in its current form in 1913, bank supervision and regulation weren’t part of its core responsibilities. But over time and through crises such as the Great Depression and Great Recession, the Fed was gradually ceded more oversight over the nation’s banks. Advocates for the Fed argue that the soundness of the banking system is interconnected with the country’s financial stability, part of the Fed’s mission as an institution.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/economy/bessent-federal-reserve-powell

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This country has been through this "argument" twice now since the country's founding and before the current system established in 1913 (which has been amended several times).


The original "First" and "Second" National bank buildings are still here in Philly in the Olde City neighborhood.

First Bank (Chartered 1791/building completed 1797)



Second Bank (Chartered 1816/Building completed 1824)



Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (text with linked sections of the law)