The Federal Reserve is not buying the optimism about the economy that the White House has been marketing under the brand Bidenomics.

In speeches this week, Federal Reserve officials made it very clear that they plan to hold their benchmark interest rate target steady at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting the week after next. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell locked-in a pause when he defied predictions that he would strike a slightly more hawkish tone in his speech Thursday.

Going into the week, markets were pricing in less than a 20 percent chance of a hike. If Fed officials felt this view was mistaken, they had plenty of opportunities to correct it in one of the dozen or so speeches, talks, and interviews they gave this week. Just the fact that none appeared to attempt a correction is an indicator that the Fed—which has shown a distaste for surprising the market when it hikes—is in agreement on that point.

Fed officials sent a secondary message in their recent appearances that received less attention. The clearest form of this came in the title of Fed Governor Christopher Waller‘s talk in London: “Something’s Got To Give.”

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