The Treasury secretary said that a comprehensive institutional review of the Federal Reserve would strengthen the central bank’s credibility.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday called for an internal review of the Federal Reserve’s nonmonetary policy operations, saying that “mission creep and institutional growth” have taken the central bank into areas beyond its remit.
Bessent wrote on social media that the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy is a “jewel box” that should be “walled off to preserve its independence,” describing that independence as a “cornerstone of continued U.S. economic growth and stability.”
Today in a CNBC interview, I called for a review of the Federal Reserve. It is my belief that the central bank should conduct an exhaustive internal review of its non-monetary policy operations. Significant mission creep and institutional growth have taken the Fed into areas that…
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) July 21, 2025
That autonomy is “threatened by persistent mandate creep into areas beyond its core mission, provoking justifiable criticism that unnecessarily casts a cloud over the Fed’s valuable independence on monetary policy,” he wrote on X.
Bessent said a comprehensive institutional review of the Federal Reserve would strengthen the central bank’s credibility with the American people.
Earlier on Monday, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that there needs to be an examination of whether the Federal Reserve has been successful.
“Has the organization succeeded in its mission?” he said. “If this were the [Federal Aviation Administration] and we were having this many mistakes, we would go back and look at why has this happened.”
The Epoch Times contacted the Federal Reserve, but the central bank declined to comment.
Fed Refurbishments
The Treasury secretary also highlighted the $2.5 billion refurbishment of the central bank’s Washington headquarters.
He said in his post on X that while he has no knowledge or opinion on the legal basis for the renovations, “a review of the decision to undertake such a project by an institution reporting operating losses of more than $100 billion per year should be conducted.”
On July 10, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, criticizing what he called the “ostentatious overhaul” of the central bank’s estate, a project which he said was now $700 million over budget.
The Fed justified the expense, saying on its website that “major systems” in both the Marriner S. Eccles Building and the 1951 Constitution Avenue Building are “obsolete and in need of replacement for health and safety reasons.”
The central bank noted that some of these systems date back to the buildings’ construction in the 1930s.
