By: Kevin Flanagan, Head of Fixed Income Strategy

Key Takeaways

• While only two official dissenters opposed the December rate cut, dot-plot projections reveal that six Fed members, including four “silent dissenters,” were against easing, signaling deeper division within the Fed than headlines suggest.
• In 2026, the rotation of regional Fed presidents into voting roles will bring in policy makers who have already voiced caution about further cuts.
• With Powell’s term ending in May 2026 and policy now firmly data-dependent, investors should brace for increased volatility in rate expectations.

Typically, I don’t do a follow-up blog post to my post-FOMC “take,” but heading into 2026, the outlook for monetary policy has gained a tremendous amount of attention. Indeed, not only will the Fed have a new Chair, but the actual decision-making process of the policy maker is also being debated. It’s against this backdrop of a “house divided” that a more in-depth analysis is warranted, as it appears as if the Fed now has what we could call “silent dissenters.”

What exactly is meant by the term “silent dissenters”? As I noted in my post-FOMC blog post, multiple dissenters on the policy statement were to be expected and, in fact, did occur from both sides of the equation: the camp for no rate cut and the other for more aggressive easing. These are public disagreements on what was eventually voted on by the full FOMC.

When the Fed releases its Summary of Economic Projections, the widely anticipated dot-plot is also included. Remember, this is the forecast for the Fed Funds trading range over a period of time that is provided by each member of the Fed, both governors and regional bank presidents. While the lion’s share of the focus centers on the upcoming period—in this case, for calendar year 2026—it also included expectations for the end of 2025.

This is where the silent dissent appears to have occurred. While only two dissents (both from regional bank presidents) were registered publicly for no rate cut, in the dot-plot for this year, we discovered that actually six Fed members wrote down a Fed Funds Rate where no rate cut would have occurred at the December meeting. Presumably, that would be the two “public” dissenters and, now, four “silent dissenters” also. In other words, if they were voting members, they would not have voted for a cut. Add it all up, and that is about one-third of the contingent that attends FOMC gatherings.

The 2026 FOMC

That brings us to what the FOMC will look like next year. As a reminder, Powell’s term runs through most of May 2026, and for the record, his last time at the helm could be the April 29 FOMC meeting. In terms of FOMC 101, the actual voting members consist of the seven Fed governors (which includes the Chair) and five regional bank presidents, which always includes the New York Fed president. The contingent of four other regional bank presidents is rotated each calendar year, and for 2026, it will include Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dallas and Minneapolis.

In recent comments, each of those four regional presidents who will become a voting member in 2026 publicly stated that either they were not for an additional rate cut or the Committee should pause further cuts to “wait out the data.” The Fed announced last week that 11 of the 12 regional presidents (Atlanta’s Bostic is retiring) have been reappointed for another five-year term. So, guess what? Any uncertainty about this portion of the FOMC is now completely removed.

Conclusion

While the just-completed December Fed meeting did not necessarily meet the “hawkish” cut criteria, Powell did highlight a theme we’ve been talking about for a while: “the Fed Funds Rate is now within a broad range of estimates of its neutral value.” As a result, future monetary policy decisions are now solely data-dependent. Stay tuned…

Originally posted on December 17, 2025 on WisdomTree blog

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