Trump picks finance professor Faulkender for deputy Treasury secretary

By David Lawder and Ismail Shakil

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated College of Maryland finance professor Michael Faulkender as deputy U.S. Treasury secretary, returning him to the division the place he helped implement a pandemic reduction program that stored paychecks flowing to staff idled by COVID-19.

Faulkender served as Treasury’s assistant secretary of financial coverage, the place he suggested then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on financial coverage points. If confirmed as deputy secretary, this position could be expanded to a broad vary of different areas, together with sanctions coverage, monetary markets regulation, tax coverage and the $28 trillion Treasury debt market.

Trump earlier this month named distinguished investor Scott Bessent as his selection for Treasury secretary, a call that appeared to calm market considerations about Trump’s deliberate tariffs and tax cuts that might balloon price range deficits.

“Mike is a distinguished Economist and Coverage practitioner who will drive our America First Agenda,” Trump stated in a put up on Reality Social. “He’ll assist Treasury Secretary Nominee Scott Bessent usher in a brand new Golden Age for the USA by delivering a Nice Financial Increase for all Individuals.”

On the finish of the primary Trump administration Faulkender returned to the College of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Enterprise, the place has been a finance professor since 2008.

He additionally has served because the chief economist for 2 years on the America First Coverage Institute, conservative assume tank that has helped form Trump’s coverage agenda. Trump has drawn a number of nominees from the group’s ranks.

Throughout a listening to of Congress’ Joint Financial Committee in March, on the U.S. fiscal scenario, Faulkender testified that by January 2021, the U.S. economic system was already recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic because of Trump administration assist applications, together with the $800 billion Paycheck Safety Program, which he helped promote to Congress in 2020.

This system gave grants to small- and mid-sized firms that allowed them to proceed paying staff that might not work in the course of the pandemic.

Faulkender stated that an extra $2 trillion in COVID-19 assist from the Biden administration accepted in 2021 helped gas inflation and stated spending cuts have been wanted.

Debt progress and rising debt providers prices “have the potential to create a bond market failure that may crush our economic system and rupture our society,” he stated in ready testimony. “To unravel this drawback, we should tremendously scale back spending and decontrol our economic system to convey down inflation, thus bringing down the rate of interest that should be paid on our excellent debt.”