Packing the Fed
THE new President of the United States, assuming that there is one, will have many worries and one opportunity. He can set out to pack the Federal Reserve Board. This was meant to be impossible. To secure the Fed's independence, its statutes pro- vide that its seven governors should serve for 14-year terms, so that they stay on and on in their classical temple on Constitution Avenue while, across town, presidents come and go. This one, though, will find that there are two vacancies on the board to be filled: unfinished• business from the Clinton era. On top of that, Roger Fergu- son has been reappointed as the board's vice-chairman but not as a governor, and this contradiction must be resolved, one way or another. Laurence Meyer's term runs out in January 2002 and Edward Kelly's two years later. Even the tireless Alan Greenspan, who comes up in 2004 for reappointment as chairman, will then be 78 and might think that he had done enough. The President will propose their successors and, though Congress must approve them, he must be tempted to go for an on-mes- sage Fed, whatever that message might be. Incoming presidents feel these tempta- tions. When Jimmy Carter (who can now be seen as an Al Gore from the sticks) appointed G. William Miller, he got a weak chairman, a compromised Fed and a crumbling dollar. It can happen.
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