The World's Best Bureaucrat

As chairman of the Federal Reserve during the global pandemic, Jerome Powell has managed to do something almost unimaginable in Washington: a good job.

- By Josh Barro

THE GOVERNMENT HASN’T EXACTLY nailed its response to the coronavirus crisis. The mistakes and miscues started with the president, but a host of critical entities have failed to contain the pandemic and its economic fallout. Look at the CDC’s shifting guidance on masks and the botched production of the first round of test kits; at the Small Business Administration’s chaotic rollout of the Paycheck Protection Program; at the refusal of Congress to replenish coronavirus aid to businesses and unemployed workers that ran out in the summer; at New York State’s decision to discharge covid-positive patients into nursing homes at the height of the crisis this past spring.

The Federal Reserve, at least, did its job.