[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 17 (Monday, January 27, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S384-S385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Scott Bessent

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as the leader has just said, I come to 
the floor for the same purpose: to talk about my vote in favor of Mr. 
Bessent to be Secretary of the Treasury.
  This Cabinet position is one of the most important positions in any 
administration. The Secretary is the tip of the spear for a President's 
domestic economic agenda. Moreover, the Secretary is a very key player 
in international affairs, with responsibilities covering international 
trade, global finance, and foreign sanctions--and that is just to name 
a few.
  Given the current challenges we face as a nation, the next Treasury 
Secretary will have a full load on their plate.
  The United States is facing what former Clinton Treasury Secretary 
Larry Summers recently called ``the biggest fiscal sustainability 
problem since the Civil War.''
  At the same time, the expansionist ambitions of Russia in Europe and 
China--particularly China's pursuit of economic hegemony--threaten the 
international economic order.
  Having met with Mr. Bessent, I am confident he is up to the task. He 
has indepth knowledge of economic history. In fact, he taught a class 
on the subject at Yale University. That and his decades-long career in 
finance make him uniquely qualified to be our next Secretary of the 
Treasury.
  He is acutely aware of the risks posed to our national economy by our 
$36 trillion national debt. He understands that digging ourselves out 
of our fiscal hole will require spending restraint and, coupled with 
that, great economic growth.
  As he discussed in testimony before the Senate committee, avoiding 
the largest tax hike in the history of our country by extending the 
2017 tax law is crucial to the health of the American economy. And we 
all know in this body that the biggest tax increase in the history of 
the country can happen to the middle class even without a vote of 
Congress because the 2017 tax bill sunsets at the end of this year.
  Mr. Bessent also understands that international trade and access to 
foreign markets are vital to the economic success of the American 
farmer. And when I spoke with this nominee in my office, I was 
pleasantly surprised by his knowledge of agriculture, stemming from his 
ownership of farmland in North Dakota.
  As with all nominees, I stressed to Mr. Bessent the importance of 
responding to Congressional letters. Congress has a constitutional duty 
to perform oversight of the executive branch. I intend to hold him to 
his commitment to

[[Page S385]]

respond to all congressional inquiries in a timely and responsive 
manner.
  I also told him that every nominee that comes before any committee is 
asked that same question: Will you respond to our letters? And I say, 
kind of tongue-in-cheek but with some truth to it, that you ought to 
say ``maybe''--because I showed Pam Bondi, our nominee for Attorney 
General, when she was in my office, a whole file of 158 letters in the 
last 4 years that I sent to the Department of Justice that have 
remained unanswered or not fully answered, and all that.
  So I hope that we can get this Trump Cabinet to keep their word that 
they are going to answer our letters, because they need to focus it 
from the standpoint of the Constitution. You learn in eighth grade 
civics that we not only pass laws here and appropriate money, but under 
checks and balances, we have the responsibility to make sure that the 
executive branch faithfully executes that law or spends that money 
appropriately.
  And so checking up on that requires a lot of communication between us 
in the Congress and the executive branch, and that is true whether it 
is a Republican or Democrat President. But I hope this administration 
is committed to fully cooperating with Congress on our oversight 
responsibilities.
  Now, there is another item I always stress with Treasury nominees, 
and that is the importance of the IRS Whistleblower Program that I 
authored critical updates to in 2006. To date, this program has brought 
in over $6 billion to the Treasury, thanks to whistleblowers who often 
risk their careers to blow the whistle on tax cheats.
  This legislation is meant to make sure that the IRS has total 
information on who is paying their taxes and who isn't. So if you are 
working with some corporation that is not paying their taxes and you 
can report that successfully--the collection of those taxes--to the 
IRS, that whistleblower can get a share of the return.
  And so far since 2006, $6 billion--billion dollars--has come back 
into the Federal Treasury as a result of that program.
  However, in regard to that program, for much of the program's 
history, there has been an embedded culture in Treasury and the IRS 
that has hampered the success of the program. So I will look forward to 
working with Mr. Bessent to turn that culture around so that the 2006 
legislation will be much more productive in not having the Federal 
Government cheated out of taxes that people owe.
  So based on my discussions with Mr. Bessent, there is no doubt in my 
mind that he is well qualified to be Treasury Secretary. So I urge all 
of my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of his nomination later 
today.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Mr. ROUNDS assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 261 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')