On one hand, there are 7 federal reserve board governors. They're appointed for 14 year terms and don't have to worry about being re-elected. They are, generally speaking, economists and spend their time thinking about money.

On the other hand, there are 535 members of congress. They're elected to 2 or 6 year terms and do need to worry about being re-elected. They are, generally speaking, lawyers and career politicians and spend their time thinking about how to fuck over the other party.

Now, which is simpler?

Simpler? Definitely not.

Interest rates are controlled by the Federal Reserve, which is an independent entity that can change interest rates without needing any kind of approval from the federal government. It's very simple for them to actually implement once the decision is made.

Taxes need to be voted in by citizens, or more accurately, the representatives of the citizens. Citizens do not tend to enjoy enforcing more taxes on themselves, and representatives tend to want to get re-elected, so they have incentive to avoid raising taxes and upsetting their constituency, even if they know it's a good idea in the long-run.

No. We stop financing the elite 1%'s lifestyles with tax money is the only sensible out.

Raising taxes goes through the Senate, where you have 51 Senators who are generally opposed to any tax rate hike, even (especially) on the plutocrat class.

Fiscal policy is not in the Fed’s charter. They are independent from the rest of the federal government and only control monetary policy. Adjusting taxes isn’t a tool in their toolbox.

As for congress, raising taxes is wildly unpopular with a large portion of the country. It takes a lot more political capital to make changes there.

In principle, fiscal policy (taxing, spending) can substitute with monetary policy to some extent, and achieve many of the same goals, yes! But you'd be hard-pressed to find an economist who describes either recent or proposed fiscal policies of the Biden administration as something that's great at being remarkably anti-inflationary. Student loan forgiveness, for instance — some may say it's a worthy policy, but it's definitely freeing up money to be used on other things, and that's something that increases price pressures. I'm not sure it's on the table.

There's other disadvantages in that the impact of fiscal policy is usually somewhat on the slow side, leaving a risk that your fiscal tightening hits as you enter the recession or your fiscal stimulus hits as the economy is already booming after the recession. So it's not quite that simple. Take the case of the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance; it purports to reduce inflation by "making a historic down payment on the deficit". Let's take this at face value just to limit any possibility for argument: maybe that'll help!!! but ... if you look closely, this is actually kind of spread out over the next ten years, while we have real inflation now. Does it have an impact? Maybe. Does it have an impact today? Probably not as strong as one would like.

Sure, if the Dems had like an 80% supermajority in both parts of Congress. Republicans tend to be universally opposed, and swing Dems typically won't touch the idea either.