Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today met with President-elect Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee, Steven Mnuchin. Grassley is a senior member and former chairman of the Finance Committee, which will consider the nomination. Grassley made the following comment on the meeting.
“It was our first time meeting, so Mr. Mnuchin and I spent a few minutes getting acquainted. We then discussed a series of issues. We covered the importance of comprehensive tax reform on both the corporate and individual levels and how tax fairness is critical to economic growth and job creation. I’ve often said that a major undertaking like tax reform requires the President’s use of his bully pulpit to rally support behind a plan from Congress and the American people. There’s an opportunity to do that with a new administration. I emphasized the importance of listening to whistleblowers within the Treasury Department and those who come to the IRS with allegations of major tax fraud. The provisions improving the IRS whistleblower office that I drafted are working, but it’s required a lot of oversight to maintain the momentum, and I’d like to see a Treasury secretary who will build on the progress. Enforcing tax fraud is a matter of fairness for the majority of the taxpayers who pay what they owe. Mr. Mnuchin and I discussed the burden of the estate tax on family farms and businesses. I emphasized the need to treat alternative energy tax incentives fairly, including keeping the current phase-out for the wind energy production tax incentive as is. Alternative energy drives job creation in Iowa and nationwide. We discussed currency manipulation as well as the need to broaden the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to cover food security. Mr. Mnuchin seemed to appreciate the need for the review process to become broader than it is now to help protect U.S. interests. I look forward to covering these issues and more in Mr. Mnuchin’s nomination hearing.”
