Kevin Warsh, former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.Courtesy: Hoover InstitutionFederal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh travels to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to convince lawmakers he can carry out a presidential push for lower interest rates while remaining free of political constraints in setting policy.Follow CNBC’s live coverage of Kevin Warsh’s confirmation hearingIn a much-anticipated hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, the former Fed governor will face questioning over a variety of subjects, from monetary policy to banking regulation to his own complicated personal financesNone likely will be more important than establishing the boundaries between the Fed’s decision-making and politics.”He has a tricky communication question,” said Bill English, a professor at the Yale School of Management and the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2010-15, a period that overlapped with Warsh’s time there.”I suspect that the way he’ll handle that is by being clear that his views are that rates can likely go lower, maybe a fair amount lower,” English said. “But at the same time, when asked directly about independence, be clear that he values independence. He thinks that independence is important and that a less independent Fed in the medium and long term would be a bad thing for the country.”Political independence has been a key question surrounding the search for a successor to current Chair Jerome Powell. Warsh views on independenceIn remarks he’s scheduled to deliver to the committee at the hearing’s start, Warsh issued a qualified endorsement of Fed independence.”So let me be clear: monetary policy independence is essential. Monetary policymakers must act in the nation’s interest, their decisions the product of analytic rigor, meaningful deliberation, and unclouded decision-making,” he said in prepared text. However, he noted that he doesn’t believe independence is endangered when the central bank’s actions are question …
