The alternative to monetary policy isn’t necessarily fiscal policy. The current situation seems to be a combination of fiscal (demand side) problems [0] and supply problems. Congress can, slowly, address supply problems. The Fed can only usefully affect the demand side.
As examples that have come up, various shipping laws make shipping expensive. Energy should be cheap to improve economic output, but energy prices are quite high, especially in places like CA. Medical services, drugs, and drug development are wildly expensive and inefficient, and government policies help keep them that way. Various environmental laws, while well intentioned, raise costs of all kinds of things while providing little or even negative environmental benefit [1].
[0] Hello, Covid stimulus policies.
[1] As an example in California, water is quite useful, and desalinating water is not fundamentally particularly expensive. But so many environmental groups have veto power over desalination that the cost of large scale desalination might as well be infinite. Never mind that CA has plenty of coastline, plenty of solar resources near the coast, and plenty of valuable goods that could be produced if cheap solar power and reasonably priced water were actually available. And never mind that actual peoples’ actual living expenses (hello, inflation!) would be reduced if their utility bills, their restaurants’ utility bills, etc weren’t so high.
As examples that have come up, various shipping laws make shipping expensive. Energy should be cheap to improve economic output, but energy prices are quite high, especially in places like CA. Medical services, drugs, and drug development are wildly expensive and inefficient, and government policies help keep them that way. Various environmental laws, while well intentioned, raise costs of all kinds of things while providing little or even negative environmental benefit [1].
[0] Hello, Covid stimulus policies.
[1] As an example in California, water is quite useful, and desalinating water is not fundamentally particularly expensive. But so many environmental groups have veto power over desalination that the cost of large scale desalination might as well be infinite. Never mind that CA has plenty of coastline, plenty of solar resources near the coast, and plenty of valuable goods that could be produced if cheap solar power and reasonably priced water were actually available. And never mind that actual peoples’ actual living expenses (hello, inflation!) would be reduced if their utility bills, their restaurants’ utility bills, etc weren’t so high.