Page 6
December 14, 2016
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Counting on the People Who Rigged the Economy
Who voted for
Wall Street
bankers?
J oSh h oxie
During the
campaign,
Donald Trump
said he want-
ed to fix our
rigged
eco-
nomic system.
And we can’t do that, he said, by
counting on the people who rigged
it in the first place.
He talked a big game about
Wall Street and the big banks. He
repeatedly called out Goldman
Sachs, the Wall Street behemoth,
by name in ads and speeches,
characterizing the firm as con-
trolling his rivals Hillary Clinton
and Ted Cruz.
So it should come with some
shock, at least to Trump voters,
that now President-elect Trump
has chosen a consummate Wall
Street insider, Steve Mnuchin, for
treasury secretary.
Mnuchin spent 17 years as an
executive at Goldman Sachs be-
fore continuing his lucrative ca-
reer as a banker and investor. Is
this not the swampiest of charac-
ters that Trump vowed to drain
away?
Trump’s anti-Wall Street mes-
by
saging resonated with millions of
voters. A poll taken just before
the election showed that nearly
70 percent of undecided voters in
key swing states wanted to break
up the big banks and cap their
size to avoid another financial
crisis.
The same proportion wanted to
close the “carried-interest loop-
hole,” an insidious provision that
enables hedge fund managers to
pay lower taxes than nurses.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s
continued on as its chair through
2015 — a period in which One-
West foreclosed on more than
36,000 families.
What exactly does Mnuchin
want to do while in power?
In his first announcement,
Mnuchin exclaimed his “num-
ber one priority is tax reform,”
promising to work with Congress
to pass the “biggest tax cut since
Reagan.” He claims the benefits
of this tax cut will go to middle
class families, rather than the up-
These former Wall Streeters
will have serious power overseeing
major parts of the government and
the overall economy.
anti-Wall Street messaging made
the difference for these voters.
But it’s abundantly clear that he
didn’t mean a word of it.
In Washington, personnel is
policy. And Mnuchin’s appoint-
ment casts serious doubt that
Trump will follow through with
any of his bluster on Wall Street.
Mnuchin isn’t just any Gold-
man Sachs alumnus: He oversaw
one of the largest foreclosure op-
erations in the country. Mnuchin
bought mortgage lender IndyMac
in 2009, renamed it OneWest, and
per class.
Fortunately, tax plans, unlike
campaign promises, can be easi-
ly and quickly fact checked. Un-
fortunately, Mnuchin’s statement
comes back pants-on-fire false.
Over half of the cuts in
Trump’s proposed tax plan would
exclusively benefit the top 1 per-
cent, according to the non-parti-
san Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities. The plan would in-
crease their after-tax income by
14 percent, 10 times more than
for middle-income earners.
Mnuchin won’t be the only
Wall Streeter in the Trump ad-
ministration. Steve Bannon, the
chief strategist for the presi-
dent-elect and former head of
the white supremacist news out-
let Breitbart, is a fellow former
Goldman Sachs employee.
The Wall Street swampiness of
both Mnuchin and Bannon, how-
ever, pales in comparison to that
of Wilbur Ross, the billionaire
investor selected by Trump to
lead the Commerce Department.
The 79-year-old investor built a
career on greed, exploitation, and
apparent tone deafness. Ross in-
famously whined in 2014, “The
1 percent is being picked on for
political reasons.”
These former Wall Streeters
will have serious power oversee-
ing major parts of the government
and the overall economy.
It’s been just eight years since
Wall Street bankers had to come
to Washington, hat in hand and
utterly humbled, to ask for a
taxpayer funded bailout. The re-
forms put in place to prevent a
repeat of the 2008 crisis are ten-
uous at best — and now they’re
under serious threat from the
same people they were designed
to rein in.
Josh Hoxie directs the Project
on Taxation and Opportunity at
the Institute for Policy Studies.
Distributed by OtherWords.org.