By VW Staff. Originally published at ValueWalk.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin tells Fox Business Network, “people talking about impeaching the president is the biggest waste of time.”
In an interview on FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Mornings with Maria (weekdays, 6a-9a/ET), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discusses impeachment talks surrounding President Trump, the tax reform timeline, the need to raise the debt ceiling, funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and more with host Maria Bartiromo.
Video links:
Steven Mnuchin on growing talks of impeachment surrounding President Trump:
“Well Maria let me just assure you people talking about impeaching the president is the biggest waste of time. They should be focused on what’s good for the American public which is creating jobs. And that’s what we’re focused on and that’s what we’re working on every day.”
On the timeline for tax reform:
“Well let me just tell you I have no higher priority than having tax reform done this year. I think as I’ve talked about, we need to get back to sustained economic growth, 3 percent or higher, and to do that we need to have tax reform, we need to have regulatory relief and we need to have trade. And we’re working every day; we’re working with the House and the Senate. We’re committed to get this done. There’s a lot of work. There are 100 people in Treasury crunching numbers and focusing on this for us. And we’re going to do everything we can possible to get it done this year because we need to for the American public to grow the economy and that’s our focus… We’re going to do everything we can to work with the House and the Senate to get this over the finish line this year.”
On his “backup plan” if the deadline to raise the debt ceiling comes after Congress’ August recess:
“I would just say our number one focus, and we’ve said this, is that the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency of the world. Our credit is the most important issue. We think that Congress should have tight controls on spending governing dollars, taxpayer dollars, but when it comes to funding the government, and we’ve already spend the money; we need to raise the debt ceiling. And I look forward to working with Congress. I think the sooner we do this the better and we’re very focused on it. And we’re comfortable. We’ll get it done.”
On the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB):
“And let’s start with this is one of the few regulators that at the moment can’t be removed by the president and at the moment doesn’t have a board to oversee it. So I think there’s litigation about this. We think it’s improper. We think it’s also improper that this is funded out of the Fed. We think this should be funded by Congress like other Congressional appropriations. This agency should be funded by proper review and not subject to one person acting on their own…I think over time we’ll consider whether it should be independent or whether it should be merged with another agency for efficiency. I think we’re focused on what the biggest problems are. And the biggest problems are, right now, it needs proper oversight. And it needs to be an independent regulator like other independent regulators, the budget’s gotten way out of control; the bureaucracy has gotten way out of control. And this is something that we are going to have to work with Congress on and we look forward to working with them.”
On regulatory reform:
“I think the good news is our banking system has recapitalized significantly. So this is about finding the right balance between regulatory reform and making sure in no way we put taxpayers at risk. And particularly for small banks, regional banks, community banks, the regulatory burden has just become too expensive and unnecessary. And we don’t need a one size fits all regulatory approach.”
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