Free Republic

Scott Bessent on CNBC: “The market and the economy have become hooked, become addicted, to excessive government spending and there’s going to be a detox period.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects the US housing market to pick up steam after recent indicators came in below forecasts., and sees potential for inflation to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target “quickly.” “We’re still living through this Bidenflation” for now, Bessent said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s David Westin, referring to the Trump administration’s contention that former President Joe Biden drove up consumer prices with his economic policies. “Over the next six to 12 months, as we deregulate, drill more American energy” and bring certainty to extending the 2017 tax cuts, “we could very...

President Donald Trump celebrated the Treasury Department’s recent announcement that it is suspending enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act against U.S. citizens and domestic reporting companies. "Exciting news! The Treasury Department has announced that they are suspending all enforcement of the outrageous and invasive Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting requirement for U.S. Citizens," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for Small Businesses Nationwide. Furthermore, Treasury is now finalizing an Emergency Regulation to formally suspend this rule for American businesses. The economic menace of BOI reporting will soon be no more." In a statement...

-snip- The US’s involvement would leave no room for corruption and insider deals. When I was in Kyiv, I met with many American companies that have been on the ground in Ukraine for years. And I have spoken with many more who are ready to support the Ukrainian economy through a just and lasting peace. The terms of this partnership will mobilise American talent, capital, and high standards and governance to accelerate Ukraine’s recovery and sends a clear message to Russia that the US is invested in a free and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. The US is a...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to Ukraine this week to discuss a potential deal concerning rare earth minerals, according to a source familiar with his plans. Bessent will be the first cabinet-level official in U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to visit Ukraine. Both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump have expressed interest in a pact that would give the United States access to Ukraine's rare earth resources in exchange for continued support in fending off the Russian invasion. The source, who requested anonymity as the plans were still confidential, did not offer additional details on the itinerary. The...

The bureaucratic empire that Rohit Chopra built at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was destined to crumble under the weight of its own excesses. From the moment he took the helm, Chopra ruled the agency as an unaccountable overlord, brandishing the regulatory hammer to bludgeon financial institutions into compliance with a progressive economic agenda. His tenure was a textbook case of administrative state overreach—punishing businesses, stifling competition, and reducing consumer choice in the name of “protection.” Trump, never one to tolerate bureaucratic tyranny, did what any president committed to free markets and limited government would do: he fired him....

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending. The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and...

A Massachusetts woman who told police that she went to the U.S. Capitol to kill members of President Donald Trump's cabinet said she was influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, prosecutors said in a court filing. Ryan Michael English, who goes by Riley English, was arrested Monday and remained in custody after her initial court appearance on Thursday. English didn't immediately challenge her pretrial detention, court records show. English, 24, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, told police that she felt like she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about for this...

The 24-year-old trans-identified male from Massachusetts who was arrested on Monday at the US Capitol with Molotov cocktails and a knife and intended to kill Scott Bessent has been revealed to have been planning the attack for a month and intended to "hurt big players" in Washington, DC, according to a court filing from the Department of Justice seeking pretrial detention. In the filing, the DOJ said that Ryan Michael English, also known as "Riley Jane English" and referred to by she/her pronouns in the document, bought an atlas around one month prior to the January 27 arrest. The atlas...

The Massachusetts man who was arrested on Monday at the US Capitol armed with Molotov cocktails and knives was transgender. Local news outlet WWLP reports the man, named in the affidavit as Ryan Michael "Reily" English, was known as Riley Jane English, a 24-year-old transgender person. WWLP states that English is "a woman who lived in South Deerfield." English had told officers he was intending to kill Scott Bessent. WWLP had initially reported on English by given name Ryan, but in their updated report they state that "This story previously identified the defendant as Ryan Michael English, the name used...

A Massachusetts man arrested at the U.S. Capitol with Molotov cocktails and a knife told police he was there to “kill” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to court documents filed Tuesday. Ryan Michael “Reily” English, who turned himself in to U.S. Capitol Police at 3:12 p.m. ET on Monday, said he traveled to Washington, D.C., initially planning to kill Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and/or House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a police affidavit said. But English shifted his target to Bessent after stopping at a library in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and reading that the Senate was voting Monday on Bessent’s nomination...

The U.S. Senate voted on Monday to confirm Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary in President Donald Trump’s administration. The Senate voted 68-29 to confirm the Wall Street veteran, with 16 Democrats joining all Republicans to choose Bessent for the post. He will be the 79th Treasury secretary. Bessent, the founder of Key Square Group, will play a key role helping Trump enact his economic agenda, including having insight on tax policy. He is being confirmed as the U.S. government grapples with its debt and deficit. The federal government has spent roughly $711 billion more than it has collected in the...

---SNIP--- "As Treasury Secretary, I’m committed to eliminating income taxes, replacing them with a fair consumption tax, and adopting a gold-backed currency," Bessent said in a Monday post on X following his confirmation. "We’ll erase debt, restore financial privacy, and unlock new technologies for a prosperous future. The golden age starts now." The hedge fund billionaire sailed through his confirmation with bipartisan support, similar to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent declares it during Senate hearing for his confirmation. CBDCs are Fascist Coin. A CBDC would effectively give the government total control over each person's money individually....a level of control even Orwell never dreamed of.

Scott Bessent said the US should increase sanctions on Russian oil producers to force Moscow to negotiate with Ukraine as he criticised the Biden administration for not being tougher on Vladimir Putin’s regime. The comments on Thursday by Donald Trump’s nominee to be Treasury secretary pushed up oil prices, as traders considered the prospect of tighter global crude supply. The new administration is also expected to target Iranian and Venezuelan oil with tougher sanctions as Trump seeks to increase economic pressure on the US’s adversaries.

Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary pick, hedge fund mogul Scott Bessent, called out irresponsible and inflationary government spending and offered solutions to America’s financial crises in his opening statement. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Bessent criticized the out-of-control spending that members of both parties in Congress and the Biden-Harris administration have fueled. Bessent further emphasized the importance of having the U.S. dollar as world reserve currency and proposed tax cuts and tariffs as key solutions to the economic and financial crises America is currently facing. After predicting “a new economic golden age that will create more jobs, wealth and prosperity for...

Treasury Secretary-nominee Scott Bessent told senators Thursday that he would be “100 percent on board” with increasing sanctions on Russia’s major oil companies if President-elect Trump supports that strategy as a way to end the war in Ukraine. “If any officials in the Russian Federation are watching this confirmation hearing, they should know that if I’m confirmed and if President Trump requests as part of his strategy to end the Ukraine war, that I will be 100 percent on board for taking sanctions up, especially on the Russian oil majors, to levels that would bring the Russia Federation to the...

In October of 2022, Smith filed a lawsuit against a publisher called All Seasons Press (ASP), to whom he had sold the rights to a book proposal based on a February 2021 essay he had written for Tablet. “The Thirty Tyrants” argued that Americans at the top of the financial, entertainment, and political industries had sold their country out to communist China. Unsurprisingly, according to an outline Smith submitted to an editor at ASP in July of 2022, one of the book’s targets would be George Soros, who in the 2010s lauded China’s “doctrine of harmonious development,” hailed the Chinese...

President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Scott Bessent, former George Soros money manager, to lead the Treasury Department.

Tariffs have a long and storied history as both a revenue-raising tool and a way of protecting strategically important industries in our country. For months, economic commentators parroted the Harris campaign’s misleading talking point that tariffs are a "sales tax." Like much of economists’ conventional wisdom, this view is fundamentally incorrect. The reflexive opposition to tariffs represents political ideology and advocacy, not considered economic thought. The truth is that tariffs have a long and storied history as both a revenue-raising tool and a way of protecting strategically important industries in the U.S. President-elect Trump has added a third leg to...