Bernanke denies pushing for interest rate cuts, stating that models show that rates would need to be lowered by 150 basis points to reach the neutral rate.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is not calling for a series of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, but simply pointing out that models suggest the "neutral" rate is about 1.5 percentage points lower than the current level. "I'm not telling the Fed what to do," Mnuchin said in an interview on Thursday, referring to his comments the day before about the Fed "rolling into a series of interest rate cuts now." Mnuchin said on Thursday, "What I said was that to reach the neutral rate, it would take about a 150 basis point cut." "I'm not telling them to reach the neutral rate," he said.