[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 194 (Monday, December 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7375-S7376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following 
nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Justin 
George Muzinich, of New York, to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, the Senate will soon cast the first 
procedural vote on the nomination of Justin Muzinich to serve as the 
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. I am going to oppose this nomination, 
and I would like to lay out exactly why, beginning with a basic rule 
that I intend to maintain going forward.
  If a Treasury nominee says the Trump tax handouts will pay for 
themselves, I intend to oppose them. The reason why is that by sticking 
with this debunked claim, you are basically laying out the economic 
policy version of being a flat-earther. You are either peddling an idea 
you know is untrue, or you can't do math. Either way, you shouldn't 
have a pivotal, powerful job at the Treasury Department.
  When Mr. Muzinich came before the Finance Committee for his 
nomination hearing, it was a titanic battle just to try to get him to 
offer any kind of substantive answer on pretty much anything. One 
question he finally answered straight up was whether he agreed that the 
Trump tax handouts would ``pay for themselves and reduce our 
deficits.'' There he gave a one-word response, which was ``yes.''
  Some call this trickle-down economics. Others call it voodoo 
economics. I call it, plain and simple, rainbow and unicorn math. No 
matter what you call it, it just isn't connected to reality. The Trump 
tax handout will not pay for itself, and even after independent, 
nonpartisan economic analyses demonstrated that was the case and even 
after months of data were released showing that the Trump tax law has 
failed to live up to the administration's fantasy land promises, Mr. 
Muzinich continues to cling to this false claim.
  I will give him credit. He has what my relatives call--what Jewish 
people call--chutzpah, but that sure isn't going to win him my support.
  In my judgment, it also raises a fundamental question of honesty. 
Before his nomination hearing, newspaper reports ran glowing quotes 
about him from several key officials at the Treasury Department. They 
praised Mr. Muzinich's financial expertise, and they talked about the 
expansive role he would play in a whole host of areas at the Treasury 
Department--not just tax policy but debt management. Republican 
committee members talked all about the work he had put into the 
development of the Trump tax law.
  I was pretty interested in Mr. Muzinich's substantive views on these 
big questions because I had read these glowing tributes from his 
colleagues, and I thought, well, if we are going to have someone 
promoted to this important position, we really ought to get a sense of 
what he believes on the really important, substantive economic issues. 
So I began to ask the nominee about these questions, and he, as I 
indicated, just put any response sort of in the ``well, I couldn't 
possibly get into that'' category.
  I wanted to know why because, eventually, we got around to his saying 
that he really wasn't going to get into these issues because he said if 
he was confirmed, he would just be, in his words, a ``building 
manager.''
  A building manager is somebody who doesn't get praised by his 
colleagues as being an expert on debt management and tax policy. 
Building managers have important responsibilities. They are involved in 
things like acoustics and ventilation. They have responsibilities. That 
is what building managers do. They certainly don't have duties like 
those described by Mr. Muzinich's colleagues.
  I had some real difficulty reconciling the way his own colleagues 
described him in these important publications and what he told me about 
his responsibilities as the building manager. I think he really is not 
reflecting what his job is all about, and the fact that he would 
misrepresent that to me in our discussions prior to his nomination--he 
misrepresented to the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee 
in charge of the nomination--is, in my view, very troubling.
  I also have had very serious questions about the way Mr. Muzinich 
responded to my questions about the Trump administration's new policy--
really, just a couple of months old--that would open the floodgates to 
more foreign dark money in American elections. We all know from this 
last election about what dark money means.
  We had our airwaves and TV sets, from sea to shining sea, dominated 
by television commercials that had a tag line on it--something akin to 
``Americans for high school football'' or ``Americans who believe in 
our flag,'' or various other things that none of us would possibly 
disagree with but that would in no way reflect who actually paid for 
that commercial that found its way to our TV sets.
  There were increased floods of dark money commercials through the 
past November election, and right before that, the Trump administration 
adopted a rule that would make it even easier for foreign dark money to 
make its way into our elections.
  We will be talking about that rule later this week. There is going to 
be an effort with Senator Tester and me to overturn that flawed policy, 
but the fact is that this is something that an individual who was 
nominated for the important position Mr. Muzinich seeks would have some 
views about and particularly because the rule change--the rule change 
made by the Trump administration to allow more dark money in American 
elections--was announced just hours after the American people learned 
about the illicit activities that an accused Russian spy Maria Butina 
had used to infiltrate conservative groups and undermine our democracy.

  So if that were a coincidence, that the Trump administration 
announced this new rule to make it easier for foreign dark money to 
make its way into our elections--announced just a few hours after the 
American people learned about Maria Butina--I have to tell you that it 
is a coincidence for the ages.
  The Trump administration and other officials, of course, say that 
Maria Butina was just an innocent college student attending American 
University. I don't know of many college students who go to South 
Dakota with an NRA political operative to set up a shell company. That 
is not common behavior for an American college student. Yet, given the 
fact that the Trump administration had made it easier to get foreign 
dark money into our elections--and a common vehicle for doing that 
would be one's using a shell company--it certainly, again, raises very 
troubling signs that a nominee for this key position will take no 
position whatsoever on something so important as that of protecting our 
elections.
  The fact is, with this new policy, the President is essentially 
blinding law enforcement and telling foreigners and dark money groups 
that it is open season for election cash to flow.
  I asked Mr. Muzinich about this. I asked: What do you think about 
this

[[Page S7376]]

problem in terms of preventing foreign influence and enforcing election 
law? I couldn't get a straight answer. Finally, he told me: ``The 
intent was to further efficient tax administration.''
  I can tell you something. I don't think Maria Butina was interested 
in anything that had to do with efficient tax administration. I don't 
think she was interested in anything close to that when she went to 
South Dakota with an NRA operative to set up a shell company. Maybe 
this was just Mr. Muzinich's way of dodging the question. If not, then 
he is basically suggesting that it is just fine with him for special 
interests and foreign actors to buy American elections because they may 
be able to sell the American people on the proposition that makes tax 
reporting easier.
  I have said before that I don't agree with every Treasury nominee on 
every issue from the Trump administration. I realize that. Then there 
have been individuals on key economic questions whose nominations I 
have supported. I thought Jerome Powell, who was Donald Trump's 
nominee, was a very wise choice to head the Federal Reserve. I have 
supported the President on important economic positions, and I voted 
for plenty of Republican nominees to the Treasury Department before. 
Yet I do expect nominees to be straight with me and with the committee. 
After all of the bobbing and weaving on issue after issue, this is a 
nominee who doesn't come close to passing that bar. In my view, he has 
not met the commonsense, basic test of giving some sense of where he 
stands on the important issues.
  I see my good friend and seatmate on the Finance Committee who is 
here, and we talk often about these issues.
  I will just say to my colleagues that the proposition that Mr. 
Muzinich is going to be the building manager for the Department of the 
Treasury is just a little bit much to swallow when you look at what his 
colleagues said he had talked about in the past with respect to tax 
management and tax reform and other important questions.
  Finally, in Mr. Muzinich's claiming that the Trump tax handouts will 
pay for themselves, he has failed on that issue by $1.5 trillion. I am 
not going to support a nominee for this position who is going to bring 
unicorn and rainbow fantasies to tax policy and to these key questions 
that are so important to the American people. I urge my colleagues to 
oppose the nomination of Mr. Muzinich.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.