{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/democrats-say-theyll-take-aim-at-trumps-treasury-pick", "Democrats say they’ll take aim at Trump’s Treasury pick", "2016-12-01", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "OR", "Jeff Merkley", "M001176", "www.merkley.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Democrats say they\u2019ll take aim at Trump\u2019s Treasury pick \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThursday, December 1, 2016\r\n\r\n\t\n\r\n\r\n\r\n  \r\n    By:\u00a0\r\n    Victoria McGrane\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWASHINGTON \u2014 President-elect Donald Trump selected a former Goldman Sachs trader and Hollywood financier as secretary of the Treasury on Wednesday, handing Democrats a high-profile target to make the case that Trump is abandoning his populist campaign promises to clear out monied elites and make Washington work for the average Joe.\r\nTrump named Steven Mnuchin\u00a0, 53, who reportedly made much of his $40 million net worth in his 17 years at Goldman, as his pick for the top economic policy post in his incoming administration. If confirmed, Mnuchin would be placed at the forefront of major Trump plans such as an ambitious overhaul of the tax code and a $1 trillion infrastructure spending blitz.\r\nAs with his other Cabinet choices, the selection elevates one of Trump\u2019s early supporters to a plum government role. Mnuchin served as the national finance chairman for Trump\u2019s campaign, joining shortly after the president-elect clinched the Republican nomination in May.\r\n\u201cSteve Mnuchin is a world-class financier, banker, and businessman, and has played a key role in developing our plan to build a dynamic, booming economy that will create millions of jobs,\u201d Trump said.\r\nBottom of Form\r\nAlso Wednesday, Trump named billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, 79, an early financial backer of Trump\u2019s campaign, to be his secretary of commerce. The choices further boost the rich, white, and largely male makeup of Trump\u2019s emerging Cabinet.\r\nDemocrats and their allies signaled they will make Mnuchin\u2019s confirmation as turbulent as possible. Readying their line of attack, they seized on his role in the resurrection of a Southern California mortgage lending institution that failed during the 2008 financial crisis. As Mnuchin led the bank\u2019s revival, it was the focus of complaints by consumer watchdogs that it engaged in unfair foreclosures and discriminatory lending practices.\r\n\u201cGiven Mr. Mnuchin\u2019s history of profiting off the victims of predatory lending, I look forward to asking him how his Treasury Department would work for Americans who are still waiting for the economic recovery to show up in their communities,\u201d said Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which will vet Mnuchin\u2019s nomination.\r\n\u201cWe need a Treasury secretary who will stand up to predatory lending, not one who practiced it,\u201d tweeted Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a staunch Wall Street critic.\r\nSenator Elizabeth Warren was, not surprisingly, critical as well.\r\n\u201cHis bank was infamous for its aggressive tactics in dealing with families that had been tricked on mortgages,\u201d the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview with the Globe, referring to OneWest Bank, which Mnuchin ran for six years. \u201cPeople like Steve Mnuchin turned millions of lives upside down, and now Donald Trump wants him to run the United States Treasury. That is outrageous.\u201d\r\nThe business community is also anticipating a fierce fight.\r\n\u201cWe expect this nomination to be one of the more difficult lifts in the Cabinet,\u201d predicted Isaac Boltansky, a Washington analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading, in a note to clients.\r\nMnuchin, responding to criticism that he doesn\u2019t have the right experience, said Wednesday, \u201cWhat I\u2019ve really been focused on is being a regional banker for the last eight years,\u201d an apparent reference to his time at the helm of OneWest and on the board of CIT Group, which bought OneWest last year.\r\n\u201cI know what it takes to make sure that we can make loans to small- and mid-market companies, and that\u2019s going to be our big focus, making sure we scale back regulation so we make sure the banks are lending,\u201d he said.\r\nIn 2009, Mnuchin and a team of fellow investors bought from the federal government the remains of IndyMac, a California-based lender that collapsed under the weight of shoddy home loans made during the housing bubble frenzy. The group renamed it OneWest, and Mnuchin became its chairman and chief executive. Under his watch, OneWest gained a reputation for moving quickly to foreclose on delinquent borrowers \u2014 carrying out foreclosures on 36,000 households in California alone, plus an unknown number around the country, according to the California Reinvestment Coalition, a housing advocacy group that has dubbed OneWest a \u201cforeclosure machine.\u201d\r\nLast year, Mnuchin and his fellow investors sold OneWest to CIT for $3.4 billion, more than double what they paid for IndyMac\u2019s assets in 2009. Trump cited that financial success in his statement announcing his Treasury pick. Mnuchin ran OneWest \u201cvery professionally. .\u00a0.\u00a0. That\u2019s the kind of people I want in my administration representing our country,\u201d Trump said. Mnuchin is now a member of CIT\u2019s board of directors.\r\nHigh-level Republicans showered Mnuchin with praise Wednesday. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance panel who will run the confirmation hearing, lauded the \u201cdepth and breadth of Steven\u2019s private sector experience.\u201d He predicted the former investment banker would help lead the Republican-controlled Congress to \u201crevamp the nation\u2019s outdated tax code to create a healthier economic environment for American businesses and families here at home.\u201d\r\nMnuchin said Wednesday that Trump\u2019s proposed sweeping tax rewrite would be his top priority. He made waves by saying that while the plan is to cut the overall tax rate for the richest Americans, it would be coupled with scaled back deductions so the highest earners would overall not get a tax break.\r\n\u201cThere will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class,\u201d Mnuchin said during an interview on CNBC. \u201cThere will be a big tax cut for the middle class.\u201d\r\nThanks to Senate rule changes ushered in by Democrats several years ago, Democrats aren\u2019t able to filibuster Trump\u2019s Cabinet picks, meaning a nominee can be approved with a simple majority vote. The Democrats would need a number of Republicans to turn against the nomination as well, a highly unlikely prospect.\r\nStill, Democrats see an opportunity to make a lot of noise in an effort to hurt Trump\u2019s standing with the voters who backed him and his populist message.\r\n\u201cDonald Trump is defining his own presidency with these appointments,\u201d Warren said, acknowledging Democrats have little hope of derailing the nomination. \u201cHe\u2019s making it clear what he ran on and what he plans to do are very different.\u2019\u2019\r\nCritics charge that OneWest reaped its profits at the expense of the type of working-class and middle-income Americans Trump said he would fight for in Washington. Housing advocates say the lender employed questionable foreclosure practices \u2014 for instance, not trying to help borrowers take advantage of government loan modification programs designed to help people keep their homes \u2014 and in at least some cases improperly kicked people out of their houses.\r\nThe backlash even got personal when in 2011 more than 100 protesters marched on Mnuchin\u2019s multimillion-dollar Bel Air mansion in the wake of a controversial Los Angeles-area foreclosure.\r\nA request for comment from Mnuchin directed to Trump\u2019s transition team was not returned. A spokesman for CIT did not respond to a request for comment.\r\nIn her interview with the Globe, Warren said OneWest was known for engaging in what is known as \u201cdual tracking,\u201d where the lender would pretend to negotiate with delinquent borrowers while quietly pursuing foreclosure proceedings at the same time, causing unwitting homeowners to lose their houses right when they thought things were getting better.\r\n\u201cThis is someone who has shown himself not to understand the plight of everyday Americans and has profited immensely on the backs of the suffering of working-class families,\u201d said Kevin Stein, deputy director of the California Reinvestment Coalition. His group recently filed a complaint, along with another consumer watchdog group, against CIT with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, accusing OneWest of discriminating against blacks and other minority groups, in some instances while it was still under Mnuchin\u2019s direction. CIT has denied the accusations.\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n           \r\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t  \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/democrats-say-theyll-take-aim-at-trumps-treasury-pick"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5183170326054096, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}