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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

The American Jobs market seems to have stalled while inflation is persistently high.

That makes for a difficult meeting this week of the Federal Reserve's open market committee

as it makes its decisions about interest rates.

Will Donald Trump's appointees to the Fed dissent from what is expected to be a 25 basis point

cut as they lobby for an even bigger interest rate cut as President Trump has urged them to do.

The health of the economy is our focus today on Potomac Watch.

I'm Paul as you go here with Joe Sternberg and Mary Anastasia O'Grady.

So it will be a big week for the Fed.

Let's talk at first about the economic backdrop here.

Two bad jobs reports for July and August. Let's talk at first about the economic backdrop here. Two bad jobs reports for July and

August here of late. A very little job growth overall. And a big bump last week in new jobless

claims, the biggest in quite a bit of time, up to 263,000. The jobless rate remains low as of the last report at 4.3%, but there are signs of

trouble. Not a lot of people are getting laid off, but not a lot of people are getting hired.

Meanwhile, consumer prices popped up in August by 0.4% or 2.9% for the last 12 months. Of course,

the Fed's target for inflation is 2%. So what's the state of the economy right now, Mary? What do you

think? I mean, are we in a stall mode? Well, I think, Paul, I think you captured it very well

there. I mean, we have a

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