The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates on Wednesday for the second time in eight days by lowering its benchmark federal funds rate by half a percentage point to 3 percent, the New York Times reported today. The Fed’s move yesterday came after an even bigger surprise rate cut of three-quarters of a percentage point on Jan. 22 at a rare unscheduled meeting. Inflation, meanwhile, is running higher than Fed officials would like as a Commerce Department report released yesterday on U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter estimated that consumer prices, excluding energy and food, climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent.