Top economists give Trump's Fed pick Moore a rocky reception

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's latest pick help lead the Federal Reserve has received a rocky reception — with top economists raising several red flags about whether Stephen Moore is qualified to be a governor of the world's most influential central bank.

Moore is a former Trump campaign adviser who helped design the 2017 tax cuts and the co-authored "Trumponomics." The economists say Moore poses the distinct risk of injecting politics into an institution that strives to remain free of political influence when setting short-term interest rates that can determine the path of employment, inflation and overall growth.

"He's merely a propagandist, as far as I can tell," said Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin. "He makes just egregious mistakes in fact and theory."

Even a prominent Republican economist criticized the choice of Moore after Trump's announcement last week.

"Steve is a perfectly amiable guy, but he does not have the intellectual gravitas for this important job," Harvard University economist Greg Mankiw said in a blog post.

Mankiw, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers for President George W. Bush, added: "It is time for Senators (sic) to do their job. Mr. Moore should not be confirmed."

Moore, who has been affiliated with multiple conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation, has taken a series of controversial stances about the Fed, despite acknowledging that he still needs to learn about how the regulator works.

He previously said that the Fed should be scrapped in favor of the gold standard. He called on the Fed to hike rates during the Great Recession, a move that could have further crippled the United States. And he recently said that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell should be fired...