Treasury nominee says U.S. won't default on its debt
WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the Treasury Department is promising that the United States won’t default on its debt, and he wants to raise the country’s borrowing limit “sooner rather than later.”
The debt ceiling is only suspended through mid-March, and the so-called extraordinary measures will likely push back the deadline for Congress to act until late summer or early fall.
Steven Mnuchin told the Senate Finance Committee during a sometimes contentious confirmation hearing Thursday that he and Mr. Trump believe that “honoring the U.S. debt is the most important thing.”
Raising the borrowing limit is necessary to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. obligations, but Mr. Trump has raised eyebrows by suggesting he might renegotiate the government’s obligations to save money.
Mnuchin tried to dispel any doubts. In his words: “The U.S. has the obligation to honor its debt” - and “we don’t want to risk defaulting.”
He was among the nominees that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, blasted while speaking to reporters Thursday.
“Just this morning, we’ve learned that Steve Mnuchin tried to hide his holdings in the Cayman Islands from the Senate Finance Committee,” Schumer said. “The list goes on and on and everyday there’s another report of a major ethical lapse among the nominees for the cabinet - the swamp cabinet. The President-elect isn’t draining the swamp with his cabinet picks, he’s filling it up - contrary to everything he promised during his campaign.”
The confirmation hearing started when Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, opened with a tough statement about financier Mnuchin.
That led a Republican senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, to suggest that Wyden might want to take the sedative Valium. Roberts also said Wyden had suggested the former banker Mnuchin was “in charge of the Great Recession.”
After Roberts’ attempt at humor, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, jumped into the fray and said Roberts’ Valium comment was “just outrageous.”
Mnuchin also defended his handling of thousands of foreclosures during the height of the financial crisis. He says he worked hard to assist homeowners to refinance so they could keep their homes. He said that he’s “been maligned as taking advantage of others’ hardships in order to earn a buck” and that nothing could be further from the truth.
The committee’s top Democrat, Wyden scolded Mnunchin for running a bank that “put more vulnerable people on the street faster than just about anybody else” as it foreclosed on borrowers’ homes.
Critics have cited the bank’s foreclosure policies under Mnuchin as a prime example of the kind of Wall Street greed that Mr. Trump campaigned against.
