Trump’s Treasury Secretary Pick Steven Mnuchin: 5 Things You Should Know

Both Trump nominees were Trump loyalists throughout much of the campaign.

Mnuchin must be confirmed by the Senate and the top Democrat on the chamber’s Finance Committee signaled he may be in for tough questioning.

Mr. Trump’s tax plan would lower top rates dramatically, a policy that provides benefits to high-income households that are so large that they can’t be covered with limits on tax breaks, such as the $100,000-a-person limit on itemized deductions already in Mr. Trump’s plan.

(Fox News) – President-elect Donald Trump officially said Wednesday that he’ll nominate financier Wilbur Ross to run the Commerce Department in his administration.

The more credible accusation against Trump is not that he is anti-Semitic, but that he and his campaign have trafficked in language and conspiracy theories that would immediately be understood by anti-Semites as signaling Jewish villainy – and galvanize them to back the campaign. In an interview with CNBC last June, Ross said he did not take all of Trump’s campaign promises literally – such as a claim, which Trump later retracted, that he could eliminate the country’s $19 trillion debt in 10 years. He also promised to “focus on things for the American worker”, adding, “That’s absolutely our priority”. Wilbur and I have worked very closely together on the campaign. At times, he has come under scrutiny for those investments. He was involved with the Sago Mine in West Virginia when 12 miners died in an explosion in 2006. He may wind up as one of the most powerful people to hold that role.

Another one of Ross’ notable clients was Donald Trump himself. He also is considering former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and former CIA Director David Petraeus for the job.

Ross has known Trump for a while and helped the real estate mogul save his Atlantic City casinos in the 1990s.

Thomas Simons, money market economist with the Jefferies in NY, characterized the plans as containing “a lot of things that sound good” but offered few details about how they will be executed.

In addition to Trump, Ross has ties to other prominent Republicans.

“It is time to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C. That is why I am proposing a package of ethics reforms to make our government honest once again”, Trump announced in an October 18 press release. The President-elect also wants to offer a tax holiday on overseas profits.

Trump also had meetings planed with Linda McMahon, a former Senate candidate in CT, former Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue and U.S. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana. He used the connections he had developed in almost two decades at Goldman Sachs to garner donations for Trump, and even negotiated a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee that allowed big donors to give to the party and the candidate.

Ross is chairman of WL Ross & Co., which has specialized in reassembling dying companies. The company also gave $5,400 to Trump and $6,000 to Hillary Clinton.

Mr Ross has blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and China’s 2001 entry to the World Trade Organization, for causing huge U.S. factory job losses. Those payments went to the “billionaire investors of OneWest Bank“, says Stein, “to cover the cost of foreclosing on working-class, everyday, American folks”, many of whom lived in California.

In an interview with Fox Business after the announcement of his nomination, Mnuchin said he believes that the controversial government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should end and that the private market should have more of a share in the mortgage market.