Trump Admin Cuts off
Emergency Lending Programs, Overruling Fed Chair.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has asked
the Federal Reserve to return $455 billion in
unused pandemic program funds.
A number of pandemic
lending programs are
set to expire on Dec. 31.
Mnuchin made the request
on Thursday, saying that the
programs "have clearly
achieved their objective.".
Fed Chair Jerome Powell criticized the request, preferring the funds continue to be used "as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.".
Powell has stated that
it is too soon to draw the
pandemic programs to a close.
When the right time comes, and I don't think that time is yet or very soon, we will put those tools away, Jerome Powell, Fed Chair, via CNN.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also rebuked the Trump
administration's request, saying that it "unnecessarily
ties the hands of the incoming administration."