All bureaucracies try to grow their power. Few have been as successful as the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, America’s central bank has steadily grown in authority and influence. That’s good for monetary policymakers and bad for everyone else. There’s a case to be made the Federal Reserve is eclipsing even Congress in power. During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress explicitly called on the central bank to expand its emergency lending activities. This created a troubling precedent: When the chips are down, the people’s representatives have no problem passing the buck to unelected technocrats. Isn’t this a good thing? Shouldn’t we be happy that an army of economics gurus is in the driver’s seat instead of prime-time partisans?