The spite continues from the Trump administration.
Mnuchin Plans to Put $455 Billion Beyond Yellen’s Easy Reach.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/mnuchin-to-put-455-billion-in-funds-out-of-yellen-s-easy-reach
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will put $455 billion in unspent Cares Act funding into an account that his presumed successor, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, will soon need authorization from Congress to use.
The money will be placed in the agency’s General Fund, a Treasury Department spokesperson said Tuesday. Most of it had gone to support Federal Reserve emergency-lending facilities, and Mnuchin’s clawback would make it impossible for Yellen as Treasury secretary to restore for that purpose without lawmakers’ blessing.
Democrats swiftly criticized the move, with Bharat Ramamurti, a member of the congressionally appointed watchdog panel overseeing Fed and Treasury Covid-19 relief funds, saying “the good news is that it’s illegal and can be reversed next year.”
A Treasury spokesperson rejected that analysis, saying Mnuchin’s move was legal under the Cares Act stimulus law that originally provided the funding. Republicans and Democrats similarly clashed on Friday over whether the outgoing Treasury chief’s reading of the law required the phasing out of a welter of Fed facilities at year’s end.
Continues.