Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore was an economic advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign and is a co-author of the Treasury chapter of Project 2025. In 2019, Trump announced his intent to nominate Moore to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, but Moore withdrew his name after immense public pushback due to his history of controversial claims, such as calling for privatizing Social Security. In his Project 2025 chapter, Moore calls for winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and restricting the role of the Federal Reserve in stabilizing the economy during housing and other economic crises.

Moore is noted for his misogynistic and racist views, including his calls for the elimination of equity initiative and programs. He routinely makes false and dishonest assertions, and is a staunch opponent of policies to combat climate change. Moore is beholden to special interest groups, billionaires, and fossil fuel executives, and has demonstrated a clear intent and willingness to implement Trump’s most radical economic policies.

Moore first joined Trump’s campaign in May 2016 as an advisor on economic policy and to help then-candidate Trump rewrite his tax plan. While he didn’t officially join the administration, Moore helped write the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Trump’s tax cuts that benefited the ultra-wealthy, cost an estimated $1.9 trillion, and have fallen short on downstream impacts promised, such as increased wages and corporate investment. In 2018, Moore co-authored “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy”, a book which lavished praise on the former president. As Carlos Lozada described in his book review, quotes include, “The message required the right messenger”; [the president is] “very charismatic”, “clever”, “gutsy”, “the greatest marketer of modern times”; “What a showman! What a gifted orator.” Moore also argued that Trump deserved a Nobel Prize in economics. Moore’s unwavering support for Trump is mirrored in Trump’s admiration of him, describing Moore as a “highly highly respected economist.”

In March 2019, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Moore to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Moore was widely viewed as the most political nomination to the Federal Reserve in decades due to his long-time advocacy of radical economic policies, extreme views towards the Federal Reserve and the agency’s independence, disregard for democracy and democratic processes in pursuit of capitalism, and incendiary remarks towards women and people of color. Conservative political analyst Ross Douthat said of Moore’s nomination, “The consensus in conservative academic think tank land is that Moore is an enormous hack, and this was true long before his Trump boosterism.” Moore was ultimately forced to withdraw his name for consideration after immense public pushback from economists, academics, Members of Congress, and the general public. In withdrawing his nomination, Moore wrote to Trump, “I will continue to be a loud economic voice advocating for your policies… I am always at your disposal.” In 2020, Moore served as a member of President Trump’s COVID-19 Economic Task Force.

Moore has a long track record of promoting fringe, free market policies and a radical economic agenda. He expressed support for abolishing both the corporate income tax and individual income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax, calling the 16th Amendment “the most evil act that has passed in 100 years.” He advocated for a gold standard and argued for “get[ting] rid of a lot of these child labor laws. I want people to start working at 11, 12.” And he has long called for the privatization of social security, referring to it as a “Ponzi scheme,” and urged students to march on the Capitol and burn their social security cards, stating “[w]hat I want to see from your generation is hundreds of thousands of people your age going to the Capitol and yelling ‘hey, hey, we won’t pay,’ and burning your Social Security cards. You know? Can you guys have that movement?”

Moore’s extreme views are not limited to economic policy. He has a long history of denying the scientific consensus of climate change, stating climate change is “the biggest scam of the last two decades,” and in February 2024, “climate change is not a science, it’s a religion.” Moore has also signaled that he shares Trump’s hostility to democracy. In a 2009 interview Moore said “Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy. I’m not even a big believer in democracy. I always say that democracy can be two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for dinner. Look, I’m in favor of people having the right to vote and things like that. But there are a lot of countries that have the right to vote that are still poor. Democracy doesn’t always lead to a good economy or even a good political system.” In June 2021, he called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act a “sham” and claimed that “Democrats are making their move to unilaterally override the election rules of all 50 states and force a highly partisan set of laws.”

As a co-author of the Treasury chapter of Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”, Moore and his co-authors urge “major policy changes” by the next conservative president. Specific proposals include:

– Slashing taxes, “The Treasury should work with Congress to simplify the tax code by enacting a simple two-rate individual tax system of 15 percent and 30 percent that eliminates most deductions, credits and exclusions… The corporate income tax rate should be reduced to 18 percent… In addition, intermediate tax reform should repeal all tax increases that were passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.”

– Reversing climate risk policies and increasing fossil fuel investments, “The next Administration should eliminate the Climate Hub Office and withdraw from climate change agreements inimical to the prosperity of the United States… The next conservative Administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement… The next Administration should use Treasury’s tools and authority to promote investment in domestic energy, including oil and gas. It should reverse support for international public- (and private-) based efforts promoting Environmental, Social, and Governance and Principles for Responsible Investment”

– Repealing major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, including the elimination of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. “Congress should repeal Title I, Title II, and Title VIII of the Dodd-Frank Act.”

– Remove the U.S. from major multilateral systems, “The U.S. should… withdraw and… terminate its financial contributions to” the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and “end its financial support and withdraw” from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

– Moore and his co-authors also accuse the Treasury of “drift(ing) into a ‘woke agenda,’’ and call for the “reversal of the racist equity agenda.” They write that “the next conservative Administration should take affirmative steps to expose and eradicate the practice of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout the Treasury Department” and “treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative, without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination.”

– “Other issues of concern include… Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and private sector pensions.”

Moore is the founder and former president of Club for Growth, a conservative, billionaire-funded 501(c)(4) that lobbies for cutting all corporate taxes, reducing the size and scope of the federal government, repealing ObamaCare, and deregulation. In 2005, while Moore was president, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) found that Club for Growth violated multiple federal laws by knowingly accepting illegal contributions, making illegal political expenditures, and failing to register as a political committee despite its explicit intent to elect pro-growth congressmen and defeat status quo incumbents.

Moore has been employed by a myriad of other right-wing organizations, including various stints at the Heritage Foundation, the driving force behind Project 2025, where he served as Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs, chief economist, and today, as senior visiting fellow in economics. Moore has also served as a long-time economist for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a pay-to-play group where corporate lobbyists and special interest groups vote as equals on “model bills” with state legislators behind closed doors. Over the course of his career, Moore has worked as the research director of President Ronald Reagan’s Privatization Commission, a fellow of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank co-founded by Charles Koch, and a senior economist on the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee under Chairman Armey of Texas, where he was instrumental in creating the FairTax proposal. Moore advised Herman Cain’s 2012 presidential campaign, and was involved with the consulting firms Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics and 32 Advisors, among various other roles.

Today, Moore serves as senior visiting fellow in economics at the Heritage Foundation, principal at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative economic advocacy group Moore co-founded with Arthur Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Steve Forbes in 2015, and is a regular conservative commentator. As a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign, Moore remains a critical player behind the former president’s pro-tariff, pro-oil and gas, and anti-immigration economic agenda, and one of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters and defenders.

This profile has been updated.