Senate confirms top White House economist to Fed board

The Senate voted Monday to confirm President Trump's top White House economist to the Federal Reserve board of governors.

Senators voted along party lines, 48-47, to approve the nomination of Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, to the remaining four months of a term on the Fed board.

As a member of the Fed's seven-person board, Miran will have a vote on all Fed interest rate decisions, along with banking regulations and major enforcement actions. He has promised to take an unpaid leave of absence from the White House until the expiration of his term in January.

Trump and other top Republicans have made it a priority to fill a vacant spot on the Fed board ahead of the Sept. 16-17 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the panel of central bank officials in charge of setting interest rates.

Miran is expected to be sworn in as a Fed governor with enough time to vote Wednesday on whether the Fed should cut rates.

While Trump has been eager to confirm Miran to the Fed as soon as possible, the new addition is unlikely to make an immediate impact at his first FOMC meeting. The Fed is almost certain to cut interest rates, albeit by a much smaller margin than requested by Trump, after several months of poor employment data.

Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has sought to make the analytical case for Trump’s major changes to trade, taxes and spending. He served in the Treasury Department during the first Trump administration, and wrote several influential papers during Trump’s second campaign that previewed the current administration’s economic thinking.