Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump caused an uproar last week by saying that the U.S. president should be involved in the Fed’s monetary policy decisions. Although such direct involvement would be a departure from the norm, Trump told reporters he feels “strongly” that “the president should have at least a say in there.” Days later on CNN, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, agreed, saying that monetary policy “should fundamentally be a political decision.”

Curiously, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D‑MA), Jacky Rosen (D‑NV), and John Hickenlooper (D‑CO) also think they know precisely what the Fed should do with its policy rate. The trio recently sent an open letter to Fed chair Jerome Powell calling for immediate rate cuts. They argued “The Fed’s monetary policy is not helping to reduce inflation,” and that “it is driving up housing and auto insurance costs—two of the key drivers of inflation—threatening the health of the economy and risking a recession that could push thousands of American workers out of their jobs.”

It’s interesting that the Senators’ comments didn’t stir up as much of a reaction as those by Trump and Vance. Yes, it’s true that Trump, if elected, would be inserting himself directly into the Fed’s decision-making process, unlike the Senators. But even if he’s elected, Trump can’t just get rid of the Fed’s Open Market Committee. And even if he could pull it off, it would take years to pack the FOMC with his cronies. Of course, those very same senators have a great deal to do with who ends up on the FOMC.

So, this whole episode is a stark reminder that inflation, unemployment, and monetary policy are always going to be part of politics. But it’s also a great opportunity to discuss ways to improve monetary policy and to make politicians more accountable for the policies they force Americans to accept.

In a sense, Vance is right—elected officials should be more responsible for monetary policy.

Under the existing system, it’s not even easy to determine exactly how the Fed makes its policy decisions, much less to hold members of Congress or the administration accountable for those decisions. As a result, politicians have a convenient political football: The Fed chair. This arrangement makes sense for politicians who want to score points and duck responsibility, but not so much for a democratic society.

It’s true, of course, that a top issue for many Americans is inflation, and many will vote based on that fact. But that’s hardly the same thing as holding members of Congress and the administration directly accountable for how the Fed operates.

One better way is for Congress to require the Fed to implement rules-based monetary policy. Doing so would allow for transparency and expose monetary policy for what it truly is, warts and all.

Many politicians hate this idea because they want to defer to the Fed. But that’s precisely why such rules-based policy is important. If politicians aren’t willing to be accountable for what the Fed is doing, they shouldn’t force the Fed’s decisions on millions of Americans.

Naturally, central bankers have a list of reasons why they hate this idea. Merits aside, there’s at least one easy way to address those concerns and maintain transparency.

The model for this approach dates to (at least) 2014, when Reps. Bill Huizenga (R‑MI) and Scott Garrett (R‑NJ) introduced a bill that would allow the Fed to pick any policy rule that it wants, and also allow the Fed to stop following that rule as long as it publicly articulates both the reason for changing course and what it will do instead.

This approach unequivocally does not tie the Fed’s hands regarding monetary policy.

Some critics will argue that rules-based policy unduly restricts the Fed’s emergency lending, but that’s nonsense. Ignoring the question of whether it would be better for Congress to directly appropriate such “emergency” loans, this policy rule approach does nothing to restrict the Fed’s existing emergency lending authority.

Regardless, leaving the Fed to operate as it currently does assumes too much. Many people think that there is a settled body of science to guide monetary policy, and that the Fed “runs” the economy, but both views are grossly mistaken. No single person or committee runs our economy, and monetary policy is much less powerful than many people think.

It is entirely plausible that some alternative arrangements might be better than how the Fed is presently constituted, but few members of Congress even want to have that discussion.

At the very least, the ability to hold the Fed directly accountable for what it does would help build support for discussing those alternatives. And at the very least, Congress owes that discussion to Americans.