Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells Congress nation's banking system remains "sound" | full video

putting in long hours to contain the Fallout of the recent bank closures the process is moving forward under existing law investigations are underway at the SEC and the Department of Justice Senator brown chair of the Banking Committee and a valued member of this committee is determined to get to the bottom of exactly what went wrong nerves are certainly frayed at this moment one of the most important steps the Congress can take now is to make sure there are no questions about the full faith and credit of the United States that means paying the bills incurred by presidents of both parties and taking a default off the table with respect to the budget debate after a request from myself and Senator Whitehouse the nonpartisan Congressional budget office did the math on the recent fiscal promises we've heard from House Republicans the promises pile up but the numbers don't add up they wish to balance the budget in 10 years but they've announced a long list of Untouchables no reductions in defense no cuts to Medicare Social Security no touching veterans programs no asking the wealthy or corporations to pay their fair share a couple of these items could get bipartisan support certainly not all of them Senator Whitehouse and I asked the Congressional budget office to run the numbers is it even possible for Republicans to stand behind those commitments does the math add up Madam Secretary you and I have talked about this the numbers don't add up not even close what the budget office found is that for Republicans to make the math work they'd have to cut every Federal program by 86 percent goodbye to Medicaid and the guarantee of nursing home coverage which I saw when I was director of the great Panthers the bordered Beyond protected roads and bridges would crumble if Republicans wanted to extend the Trump tax law they'd have to cut everything else given that it's not a big mystery why House Republicans haven't yet put a budget on on paper budget to show the public they're living way way out there Democrats are following a smarter approach the president's put out a budget it's based on a simple proposition help Working Families help the middle class get ahead reduce the deficit at the same time and show that these matters are not mutually exclusive I'm just going to highlight a few budget matters that are important to the treasury first last week the committee had a very good bipartisan hearing on affordable housing this is an area where I believe there's a clear opportunity for bipartisan cooperation the budget proposes expanding the low-income housing tax credit creating the neighborhood homes program and other ideas Senator Cantwell Senator Cardin Senator Young they're championing bipartisan efforts I'm going to work with them closely on these proposals and more this crisis needs a solution there is no substitute you and I have talked about this as well Madam Secretary for increasing Supply of housing second the budget calls for expanding two of the most significant sources of support for working people and families the child tax credit the earned income tax credit when the Congress passed these expansions in 2021 they were huge almost immediate reductions in poverty with a little bit of help millions of working Americans felt like they could breathe for the first time I'd like for them to have that feeling of relief once again and third we've talked for a long time about the need to address the basic unfairness of America's two-tiered tax system one set of rules for people who work for a living firefighters nurses teachers they pay their taxes out every paycheck then there's another set of rules for the very wealthy who can pay what they want when they want to and for years on end little or nothing although the president and I have proposed slightly different ideas for addressing the unfairness we are rowing in the same direction one final issue I have got serious concerns about the administration's approach to implementing a portion of the inflation reduction act that deals with sourcing critical minerals free trade agreements cannot be unilaterally decided by the executive branch they require consultation consent from the Congress that includes any agreement on critical minerals secretary Yellen thank you again for being with us I know you've got a hectic schedule we're going to have a wide-ranging discussion we look forward to questions and answers and I understand that you've got a hard stop at one o'clock so we'll all try to keep them short and get to questions Center crape them thank you very much Mr chairman and welcome to today's hearing secretary Yellen I appreciate your appearing before the committee in this timely manner following the release of the president's budget while the budget is the focus of today's hearing I expect that the emergency measures that have been taken this weekend by treasury the Federal Reserve and the FDIC will also be appropriately discussed today it's important to learn more about what initiated the run on Silicon Valley Bank the impact of the Federal Reserve holding interest rates low for too long and what steps were or were not taken by the svb and the banking regulators in the meantime I'm concerned about the precedent of guaranteeing all deposits and the market inspection expectation moving forward once started moral hazard like inflation is not easily contained and does not and does long lasting damage inflation played a key role in the recent bank failures as rising interest rates and mismanaged interest rate risk led to a liquidity crisis indeed there is no issue more critical than the unacceptably high inflation that American families continue to face every day Americans have now experienced 16 months of inflation at or above six percent costs of rent groceries and services continue to rise wages cannot keep up last year the administration committed to working in a bipartisan fashion to address this serious problem noting that the budget must complement monetary policy instead what we've seen is a reckless tax and spend agenda that was forced through Congress rolling out trillions of dollars in debt Finance spending and hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax increases on U.S job creators the Congressional budget office says the inflation reduction act will not only increase inflation in the near term but treasury will collect less corporate tax revenue with the partisan Ira in effect despite being sold as a bill to make corporations pay their fair share the Federal Reserve is having to compensate for this by growing interest rate hikes Rising interest rates are impacting household budgets the federal government's coffers and as we saw this week our banking system the president's budget demonstrates the Administration has not learned from its mistakes after two years of policies that contributed to record high inflation and excessive deficit spending this Administration is doubling down with this budget with more of the same spending binge must stop we must address our growing deficits in order to put the United States finances on a sustainable path and pro-growth tax policy should be a part of that solution the tax cuts and jobs act led to one of the strongest economies in Generations the tcja introduced competitive tax rates while broadening the base including by enacting the first Global minimum tax of its kind and putting an end to corporate inversions it also contributed to record high corporate tax receipts both nominally and as a share of gross domestic product but instead of considering bipartisan pro-growth policies the president's budget includes a whopping 4.7 trillion dollars of new and increased taxes on American job creators which ultimately means fewer jobs and lower wages it also includes higher taxes on American Energy producers earlier today Senator barrasso and a number of his Republican colleagues including myself sent a letter to you secretary Yellen raising concerns with the over 100 billion dollars in increased energy taxes proposed in the president's fiscal year 24 budget 2024 budget and Mr chairman I ask that this letter be included in without objection sorted the administration's short-sighted partisan agenda extends to its unilateral approach to the oecd international tax agreement for the last two years treasury has used the oecd negotiations to attempt to compel changes in U.S law without regard for U.S revenue for U.S companies and U.S workers not only has the administration failed to put a stop to digital Tax Services taxes but now foreign countries threaten to impose extra territorial taxes on U.S companies under the global minimum tax at treasury's invitation the latest oec guidance confirms the Administration has agreed to allow foreign countries to collect U.S guilty revenue and worse tax U.S companies on their U.S profits in violation of our existing tax treaties the budget fails to consider these Revenue impacts which if implemented will result in billions of dollars of lost U.S Revenue meanwhile the administration continues to hide its true intentions for transforming the IRS the budget doubles down on the 80 billion dollars already given to the IRS including two more additional years of plus up funding totaling 29.1 billion solely for enforcement and compliance initiatives in addition to 14.1 billion more of yearly funding that's another 43 billion dollars secret secretary Yellen I agree with you that having a funding plan for an agency budget that dwarves many others is critical in the meantime the IRS has embarked on a spend first plan later approach that is not transparent or responsible and is a Surefire recipe for error waste and mismanagement while we may not have the details yet we do know that only six percent of this existing plus up for funding is for modernization while over 62 percent is solely for hiring more than 93 percent of that enforcement hiring these new funds are not going to replace retiring U.S agents as annual Appropriations already provide that funding and the Administration has not requested any reductions in IRS annual funding to account for replacing retirees with this plus step funding secretary Yellen there are opportunities for the administration to work across the aisle on Common Sense economic policies but nothing suggests the president is abandoning the partisan tax and spend policies of the last two years this Administration must recommit to working with Republicans to develop real solutions that will stabilize the economy and create higher wages and opportunities for American workers thank you very much thank you thank you very much Senator krapau our witness today will be secretary Janet Yellen she's the first person to have led the White House Council of economic advisors the Federal Reserve and the treasury Department she's also the first woman to lead the treasury Department before leading treasury in the Federal Reserve she was a distinguished fellow in Residence at the Brookings institution she served as president of the American economic Association she's a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and Council in foreign relations she also was a founding member of the climate Leadership Council we welcome you secretary Yellen and please proceed thank you chairman Wyden ranking member crapo and members of the committee thank you for inviting me here today I'd like to start with an update on the recent developments in the banking system this week the government took decisive and forceful actions to stabilize and strengthen public confidence in our financial system first we worked with the Federal Reserve and FDIC to protect all depositors of the two failed Banks on Monday morning customers were able to access all of the money in their deposit accounts so they could make payroll and pay the bills shareholders and debt holders are not being protected by the government importantly no taxpayer money is being used or put at risk with this action deposit protection is provided by the deposit Insurance Fund which is funded by fees on banks second the Federal Reserve is providing additional support to the banking system with the new lending facility this will help financial institutions meet the needs of all of their depositors I can reassure the members of the committee that our banking system is sound and that Americans can feel confident that their deposits will be there when they need them this week's actions demonstrate our Resolute commitment to ensure that our financial system remains strong and the depositors savings remain safe now let me turn to the topic of the hearing the president's fiscal year 2024 budget over the past two years the United States has experienced an historic economic recovery in January 2021 our country was in the middle of an economic Calamity triggered by the coronavirus pandemic but Congress and the president took decisive action through the American Rescue plan and our vaccination campaign and today our unemployment rate is near historic lows and we've seen the strongest two years of business Creation in history now our task is to navigate our economy's transition from rapid recovery to sustainable growth this includes bringing down inflation we have seen some moderation in headline inflation but more work needs to be done our Administration will continue to build on the actions we have taken to expand Supply and provide cost relief in areas like energy and health care with your partnership we've also laid a foundation for long-term economic growth in just the past two years alone Congress passed Three transformational Laws a generational investment in infrastructure an historic expansion of American Semiconductor manufacturing and the largest investment in clean energy in our nation's history the Strategic priority for our Administration this year is to work with you to effectively Implement these laws we're seeing the yearly results in just seven months there's been a wave of investments in clean energy manufacturing across the country and our new resources for the IRS are already paying off taxpayers are getting drastically improved customer service this year for example we've answered hundreds of thousands more phone calls during this filing season than at this time last year our proposed budget Builds on our economic progress by making smart fiscally responsible Investments these Investments would be more than fully paid for by requiring corporations and the wealthiest to pay their fair share fiscal discipline remains a central priority in our budget we've proposed a minimum income tax of 25 percent on taxpayers with wealth in excess of 100 million dollars we've also proposed an increase of the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from the current 21 percent and it will come as no surprise that I hope Congress will implement the United States's part of the global minimum tax deal on the spending side we suggest additional Investments to boost our long-term growth potential this includes improving the availability of high quality Child Care providing free and Universal preschool and boosting the supply of affordable housing we also propose restoring the child tax credit and earned income tax credit expansions that were enacted in 2021 but have since expired importantly with the proposed tax reforms we estimate that this budget will deliver deficit reduction of nearly three trillion dollars over the next 10 years thank you and I look forward to taking your questions thank you secretary Yellen let me begin with what I emphasize that it's critically important that Congress takes steps to make sure there's no questions about the full faith and credit of the United States and this is a matter within the finance committee's jurisdiction now on Friday the house waves and means Republicans passed a plan dealing with what they called priority prioritizing payments by the treasury they say that when treasury runs out of stop Gap funding it should prioritize payments to Wall Street and creditors in China ahead of everybody else I'm coming off some Town Hall meetings in Oregon this weekend wouldn't be a big hit with everybody Now setting aside the merits of this Republican plan does the federal government have the technical capacity to prioritize some payments ahead of others I understand there's not even a precedent for this the government on average makes millions of payments each day and our systems are built to pay all of our bills on time and not to pick and choose which bills to pay there is a reason that treasury secretaries of both parties have rejected this incredibly risky and dangerous idea and it's never been tried before I cannot give any assurances about the technical feasibility of such a plan it would be an exceptionally risky untested and radical departure from normal payment practices of agencies across the federal government and I consider it essential that congress come together to recognize that raising the debt ceiling is their responsibility to protect the Full Faith and Credit in the United States so you've told us this prioritization scheme is unworkable and House Republicans don't get to decide what qualifies as a federal default if the government can meet some but not all of its obligations isn't that essentially the definition of a default failing to pay your bills is what I.E all of your bills when they're due is what I think of is a default the United States has always paid all of its bills on time and it should stay that way and that's been a core American value since 1789 regardless of party presidents and congresses have always honored all of our commitments and prioritization is effectively a default by a number and by just another name I appreciate you bringing us up to date on that Madam Secretary and colleagues the reason I focused on protecting the full faith and credit of the United States is this is explicitly within this committee's jurisdiction so I thank you secretary Yellen let's talk about the double standard in tax enforcement too much of the burden falls on working people in the middle class it's too easy for corporations and the wealthy to get away with cheating every time out it seems that Republicans are trying hard to keep it that way they put an amendment to the IRA that according to the Congressional budget office would have led to even more tax avoidance by the wealthy it would have encouraged billionaires to disguise their income so they'd appear to the IRS to be typical middle-class wage earners they've even been Republican efforts to speed up hiring the kind of highly trained and dogged experts that you need to crack down on tax cheating by the wealthy and businesses that have very complicated business structures and of course the first bill out of the gate in the house with this 114 billion dollar giveaway to the wealthy tax Chiefs and the tax dodging corporations they would have in in effect repealed the funding Democrats passed in the inflation reduction act secretary Yellen if Republicans had their way and repealed the IRS funding to after wealthy you know tax cheats what would that do to the agency's ability to really make sure that those people at the very top paid their fair share well it would allow the wealthy and large corporations to skip out on taxes they legally owe and make life harder for ordinary middle class families who pay their taxes to get the kind of service that they deserve from the IRS and it would increase the tax Gap and add to the deficit by over 114 billion dollars so let's talk about improvements in taxpayer Services now the IRS funding as of early March the IRS was answering 90 percent of the calls to its customer service lines and had the backlog of individual returns reduced substantially in the ballpark of 90 percent now that's after spending roughly one percent of the IRA funding secretary Yellen if Republicans were able to successfully repeal the inflation reduction act funding what would that mean for taxpayer services and the reason I asked that is right now we're in the middle of the filing season so this isn't some kind of abstract kind of concern what would it mean for taxpayer Services if they repealed the funding well it just clearly would lead to worse services for taxpayers phones would go unanswered wait times would grow mail would be processed more slowly refunds would be delayed we're undergoing a transition to digital forms and improved scanning would be delayed paper backlogs would grow and taxpayer assistance centers are now being reopened and fully staffed and some of them would have to close or be understaffed I'm over my time Senator krapon thank you very much Mr chairman and let me start out Madam Secretary with the full faith and credit issue that my colleague Senator Wyden has raised we are in agreement that we need to protect the full faith and credit of the United States um frankly as I indicated in my opening statement the problem that we see on the Republican side is that it's all tax and all spending increases in terms of the administration's approach to this and while you and the chairman just discussed a number of concerns you have with Republican ideas with regard to how to deal with this the bottom line is that we must stop trying to solve this problem by Massive new spending and massive new taxes so we have some disagreements about how to deal with this what I would ask of you is at this point the president has refused to negotiate with Republicans on fiscal restraint policies that they believe need to be put into place with a with a new extension of the debt ceiling we must engage in negotiations to get over some of these disagreements and this new debt ceiling resolution must include fiscal restraint we've got to get some kind of attention to this I think the American public is crying out for Congress to pay attention to this issue and put fiscal restraint in place can you commit at least to negotiate with Republicans as we try to work forward on finding some aspects of fiscal restraint to put into the debt ceiling discussion Senator creepo the president has indicated that he considers it critically important to have a sustainable and responsible fiscal path and he's put on the table in the budget a number of ideas many ideas about how to grow the economy while also cutting deficits and this is a matter that he is very prepared to discuss and negotiate with Republicans but it can't be a condition for raising the debt ceiling the debt ceiling simply must be raised and to put at risk uh the full faith and credit of the United States and to threaten to cause an economic and financial catastrophe isn't an acceptable well I'm Madam Secretary I interpret your answer to be that you're very willing to discuss the president's budget tax increases and increased spending but you're not willing to discuss with regard to the debt ceiling discussion any actual fiscal restraint in terms of spending control in the United States now if I interpreted it wrong I'm sorry but we've got to get negotiating on more than just whether the president's budget is the right approach there are other ideas and we need to be engaged in and I just hope that you'll take that message back to the president the president has indicated that he would welcome discussions about the stance of fiscal policy all right I appreciate that let's move quickly to the svb crisis in in the banking industry can we agree at least as a starter as we try to understand how this is all playing out that the issue here in terms of risk is liquidity risk that we are facing in the system and that svb had an a liquidity risk issue well there was a run on the bank it had high Reliance on uninsured deposits and um there was a massive withdrawal of deposits that led to liquidity problems the bank had to be closed for that reason so do you agree then that it is a liquidity risk that we're dealing with in this issue well there was a liquidity risk in this situation I um you know there there will be a careful look at what happened in the bank and what initiated this problem but clearly the downfall of the bank the reason it had to be closed was that it couldn't meet depositors depositors withdrawal requests because their Capital was being was losing value and they were not able to access their capital and and I attribute that to the interest rate hikes that we are seeing in in the face of the inflation am I wrong in that well my understanding is that the bank to meet liquidity needs had to sell assets that it expected to hold to maturity and um given the interest rate increases that have occurred since those assets including treasuries and government-backed security mortgage-backed Securities they had lost market value all right and we're on the same page on that then I appreciate that one other question with regard to the bank failure and a part this is with regard to the efforts to get a private buyer to help solve this issue regarding these issues the solution would have been to get a private sector solution that protected taxpayers calmed the markets and prevented the potential assessments from being inappropriately levied against Community Banks press reports have indicated that some at the some of the FDIC board members may have slow walked the negotiations with regard to potential political backlash surrounding mergers and Acquisitions and it was because of that that we were not able to move forward promptly with obtaining a buyer are those reports accurate well this is something that is a question for the FDIC really rather than me but I I know that the FDIC um looked looked for buyers and a merger acquisition is certainly uh something that they were open to is a way to resolve the institution all right thank you um very quickly on the oecd agreement I'm very much opposed to it and yet it seems to me that treasury is pushing for Congress to approve its approach to the oecd negotiations and is already giving support to Nations around the world in the oecd to tax U.S profits that would be directly in contrast or in conflict with U.S tax treaties am I correct in that 137 countries signed this agreement and see it as a way to put a floor on taxation of Corporations and multinational corporations and stop a race to the bottom and the European Union has adopted did a pillar to the global minimum tax and other jurisdictions are moving forward my questions it's in the U.S interest to adopt this with um we have proposed um I understand Madam Secretary my time has expired and the Chairman's trying to get me to wrap up I do want to make one more quick statement I would like to express my concern about numerous proposals in the green book in the budget that we won't have time to get into here today last year treasury did not provide answers to these questions for the record responses for six months and I just would like to ask you to pay attention to this this year and have your team respond to us promptly as we get questions for the record on this year's budget Senator Grassley yeah you didn't answer his last question about oecd and tax treaties is what you're proposing in any way of violation of the tax treaties that we've had with other countries no there's no violation in anything we've proposed with um tax treaties that we have engaged in this is something that the oecd considered very carefully and there's no violation of our tax return We surely don't agree with your analysis of that only Congress has the power to approve tax treaties I want to go to your position as a member of the Social Security Board of Trustees you and other people put out an annual report a quote lawmakers should address the projected trust funds shortfalls in a timely way in order to phase in necessary changes gradually and give workers and beneficiaries time to adjust to them end a quote I don't disagree at all with that statement President Biden has claimed that his budget reduces the deficits while protecting Social Security however the president's budget includes no proposal to extend the solvency of the Social Security trust fund anyone who knows that things get done around here know what takes presidential leadership to lead major reforms to Social Security forty years ago that was a President Reagan and a democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill they put together a bipartisan agreement that was overwhelmingly approved by the Congress of the United States and it's and it has made Social Security sound at least through 2035. so I assume that you stand by your recommendations that lawmakers act sooner rather than later to show up Social Security trust funds so can Congress expect to see the president's proposal to put Social Security on a sound fiscal basis along the same ways replicating the leadership of President Reagan and Tip O'Neill President Biden stands ready to work Congress social Security in discuss possible approaches so that's a conversation that it's important for us to have he has made explicit proposals in connection with Medicare ensuring it up and it's important to have that conversation about social security the president believes strongly that that should not involve cutting benefits or going back on our commitments to America's seniors but certainly it's a discussion we need to have I assume that both you and the president are sincere in what you just said it would help a lot if the president would quit demagogue and the social security issue the way he has in recent weeks I want to go to an extension of conversation you and I had June of 2021 you defended concerns about the president's spending proposals fueling inflation and interest rates hikes by saying this quote if we ended up with a slightly higher interest rate environment it would actually be a plus for society's point of view and the fed's point of view end of quote I want to emphasize Plus for a society's point of view now when you made that statement inflation was 5.4 percent and the federal funds rate was effectively zero since that time inflation hit a 40-year high and the FED has responded by aggressively hiking interest rates as a result families and small businesses are paying the price by way of higher interest rate costs for home loans and business lines of credit moreover bank failures this past week highlighted how fragile our economy is given Rising interest rates and decades long inflation so do you still see our inflation-driven interest rates hike as using your words a plus for society I consider High inflation the number one economic problem that all of us need to face and address it's the president's top priority um I was very supportive of the American Rescue plan um I I think there are many factors that have contributed to high inflation it's critical for the FED to address it and the president is doing all that he can both through the inflation reduction act lowering costs of prescription drugs are lowering the cost of Health Care using the Strategic petroleum Reserve to try to lower and address higher Gas and energy costs for Americans it's critical for us to do what we can to bring inflation down and for the FED to do its part as well the inflation reduction Act was enacted at a time when I believe the greatest threat to our economy was that unemployment would remain shockingly high and that American families would be scarred by long-term job loss and losing the roofs over their heads and I believe it was appropriate to take those actions my time has run out just let me finally say this that what you say about the inflation reduction act reducing inflation within the last three weeks the CBO says that increased inflation thank you Senator Grassley Senator carton uh thank you Mr chairman and secretary Yellen welcome thank you very much for your service I'm going to question in regards to areas where we have bipartisan support where we can I hope make progress in this Congress and getting some changes in our tax code particularly as it deals with one the subject that you mentioned in your opening statement affordable housing we have fallen behind in affordable housing we were able to make progress in a lot of areas during the last two years but affordable housing was not one of those areas where we were able to advance so your budget includes three initiatives in which there is bipartisan support one is to make permanent to New Market tax credits I'm working with Senator Danes on that proposal to give predictability to New Market tax credits which would be great for I think private sector investment the other is low-income housing tax credit where your budget provides for the expansion and reform of that credit uh Senator Cantwell Senator Young have been leaders on this committee we've joined them in that effort and then lastly on the neighborhood homes credit which I have been the sponsor and Senator young is my co-sponsor so these are all bipartisan bills that we have a chance of moving forward my suggestion is to try to see whether we can't move a housing tax credit program separate from the other areas where we might have more controversy this is an area we could perhaps get to the Finish Line earlier so could we have your cooperation and trying to deal with a housing tax credit bill that could perhaps make it to the president's desk earlier rather than later and I'm very pleased that this is an area where there is bipartisan agreement on the need to act I think the United States really faces a housing Supply Gap and we need initiatives to make rents more affordable and attainable homeownership for Americans and all of the programs that you mentioned the new markets uh tax credit uh light tech in the neighborhood homes tax credit all of these are important initiatives and we would look forward to working with Congress to try to see if we can make progress here thank you uh I want to move on to another bipartisan bill that passed in the last congress with overwhelming support in retirement savings secure 2.0 uh are you focused on helping us Implement that law as quickly as possible it provides opportunities for particularly modest income families to be able to take advantage of retirement savings opportunities particularly with the refundable tax credits are are you working to make the implementation of that law as smooth as possible so we can see some progress yes absolutely it's an important law it contains many Provisions that are complex and do require detailed technical analysis to produce public guidance and regulations but this is something that we're working hard on and the IRS and Treasury Office of tax policy are working to implement this another area where I think there's bipartisan support is improving this service at the IRS and the modernization of the its uh capacities the chairman already mentioned uh the fact that you've made some progress actually the call the successful answering of calls has dramatically been increased do you see continued progress being made in regards to the service levels being provided by the IRS as a result of funds made available through the inflation reduction Act absolutely this will be a very critical part of the IRS strategic operating plan that should be completed in the coming weeks it has been a priority since day one I promised during the tax season that there would be 85 percent um customer service performance and so far we have been in that range and modernizing the way in which IRS interacts with taxpayers with small businesses there there have already been other improvements put into a into effect that for example makes it easier for small businesses to file 1099 forms online and this will be an important priority I want to ask two questions for the records if I just mentioned them one will deal with the Section 179 D allocations I've worked with Senator crapo on this the guidance from the IRS is absolutely critical in regards to the allocation issue I'll be asking a question for the record on that and also you mentioned small businesses the r d changes in the 2017 tax bill have been very much impacting the ability of companies to do research I chaired a small business committee it's having a direct impact on the sbir pro program which is critically important for Innovation and for National Defense I might say so I'll be asking you questions as to how we can mitigate the adverse impact of the change in the Rd credit as it affects small companies in the sbir program thank you Senator Cardin and this committee is really going to dig in on this housing issue and my view is we start with the proposition the only matter that's off the table is taking a pass on it we've got to act Center corn in your next good morning Madam Secretary when you testified before this committee almost two years ago you were asked whether inflation was transitory and you told the committee that you saw important transitory influences at work but you did not anticipate that inflation would be in any way permanent you predicted our economy was on track to get back to more normal operation that inflation would decline over time something we all hoped for to be fair you weren't the only person who forecast transitory inflation the chairman of the Federal Reserve Jay Powell did the same as did the president of the United States we now know that inflation Rose to a level not seen in more than 40 years and that inflation accelerated particularly following the enactment of the partisan American Rescue plan act in 2021 and then with the so-called inflation reduction act in 2022 which together added 2.6 trillion dollars to our national debt obviously all the stimulus going into a constrained economy with Supply chains uh the way they were Workforce levels down obviously created uh Port was like pouring gasoline on the inflation fire and though inflation has now come down to six percent or so that's hardly good news to my constituents who are still struggling to keep up with Rising costs we know both record housing costs which we've talked about a little bit here today and high grocery bills are squeezing consumers all across the country and to make matters worse real average hourly earnings the cash earnings of all workers adjusted for inflation declined last month and are down over the last year in other words because of inflation workers have gotten a pay cut well first we saw High inflation and then higher interest rates of course and that brings me to the failure of the of the Silicon Valley Bank and another bank in this last week some have suggested that this was an example of mismanagement at the time of higher interest rates and higher inflation others are saying where are The Regulators were they asleep at the wheel many have suggested that banking Regulators need to focus more on regulating Banks protecting depositors and taxpayers instead of straying off course and examining so-called climate related risks and other social engineering goals I think these are all fair points when you look at the Confluence of concerning economic fast factors there is one unavoidable truth we need to get our fiscal house in order something that the administration pays lip service to but what seems uninterested in working with Republicans to try to address and the president's budget proposal of course just makes that clear because it offers more taxes more spending and more debt spending would be at historical levels relative to the economy the national debt would continue to grow Social Security and Medicare which are on a path to insolvency there is no proposal from the president to deal with these these impending disasters of course interest costs to service this debt would reach about a trillion dollars annually our ability to defend our country in an increasingly dangerous world would be diminished because we'd be spending more money paying interest to the bondholders rather than paying to keep the American people safe and Americans of course would be punished with trillions in higher taxes at a time when tax revenues are already at historical levels it's not that the American people are taxed too little it's that the federal government continues to spend too much and spend to and incur too much debt which in turn creates this unvirtuous cycle one final point last year the administration pushed through an 80 billion dollar blank check for the IRS without a spending plan only in Washington D.C would Congress pass an 80 billion dollar spending appropriation without any plan as to how it's going to be implemented and we were told well it will be forthcoming that's great but that's the opposite of what you would do it in the real world first you would not want to know what is the plan and then you would ask how much does it take to finance or pay for that plan well now the administration wants another 29 billion dollars which would bring the total up to 110 billion dollars this of course is going to mean more audits more red tape and violate the president's promise that no one paying less than four hundred thousand dollars in taxes uh would pay any more so unfortunately the president's budget misses the mark which is disappointing but unfortunately pretty consistent with what we've seen from this Administration thank you Senator corn and next would be Senator Bennett followed by Senator Cassidy I'm going to yield to Mr Cassidy if that's all right nobody can say there's no collegiality in the final Senator Cassidy um Madam Secretary the president keeps saying he does not wish to have Cuts in in Social is he aware that under current law when the program goes broken nine years that there will be a 24 benefit cut for those who are current recipients is he aware of that well it's clear that Social Security but as you I apologize for Interruption but I have limited time is the president aware that when social goes broke in nine years under current law there's a 24 percent cut in benefits for people who are currently receiving if we don't do anything about it I think that's about right but okay let me ask the president will want wants to strengthen Social Security and the 4.5 trillion dollars of taxes the president has proposed are any of those taxes going to shore up Social Security I actually know that answer the answer is of the 4.5 trillion in taxes he has proposed not a dime is going to shore up Social Security does the president know personally anybody who is dependent upon Social Security and if their benefits are cut by 24 percent they will slide into poverty it's hard for you to know so I'll give you a password the president knows many people on Social Security and why doesn't the president care he cares very deeply and where is his plan he stands ready to work with that's a lie because when a bipartisan group of senators has repeatedly requested to meet with him about social so that somebody who is a current beneficiary will not see her benefits cut by 24 percent we have not heard anything on our request and we've made multiple requests to meet with the president now I you can't comment on that I realize that but that is a fact and if you've been told to say he stands ready to meet I will tell you there's absolutely no evidence because we have not gotten our meeting well I believe the president does stand ready to work again empirically addressed this issue um now the president in the past has proposed increasing taxes on those making over 400 000 to pay for it although he's not made that formally he has said that in the past um now he's also proposed to tax them more to pay for Medicare and also to close the debt and deficit so what would the rates have to be on that two percent of Americans who earn over 400k in order to do Medicare the debt and deficit and also to address our 75-year shortfall in Social Security do you have any sense of what the rates would have to be well he has proposed explicit increases in tax rates on very high income but do you think it's realistic that he can pay for Medicare debt and deficit and also address a 75 percent shortfall in Social a 75-year shortfall in Social by only taxing by only a going the only thing he's going to do is to lay higher taxes on those who make more than two percent I'm sure there's a projection of how much those rates would have to be do you can you tell us what those rates would have to be to do everything he is saying I I can't tell you that but I do know that he's put on the table many proposals that would raise very substantial revenues but of that 4.5 trillion not a dime is going to Social and if you've not if you cannot tell me I presume that they've not actually modeled what those rates would have to be which tells me that he's actually not been developing his plan now this is incredibly worrisome from a president who should be sympathetic with someone who under current law is going to get a 24 cut the president feels is completely committed to protecting seniors who rely on Social Security if if we doubled our debt to GDP ratio um just theoretically if you will and aside from our conversation if we double that GDP to debt ratio what effect would that have on the economy so um right now and in the president's budget proposal when I asked you just the theoretical independently of the budget proposal if we were to double the debt to GDP ratio yes um I I don't see why we would need but if we did just just you're an economist if we did what would be the effect upon the economy well we tend to raise net interest costs would it be a negative effect on the economy of course it would be of course yes of course it would be we've actually modeled this for the president to do nothing let's assume that we cast aside current law and we just double the national debt and that's what it would do um it would have a devastating effect upon the economy CBO says they cannot model the deleterious effects that would occur because of that so we have a situation where the president has not proposed a single plan he has turned down multiple requests for meetings with senators and our options are a 24 cut on the um a person currently receiving doubling our national debt which CBO says cannot be modeled and you agree that would be in deleterious effect um uh and he's not modeled the tax rates that would be required if he just wants to raise taxes look what I know is that the president is committed to Social Security he stands ready to work with Congress and he's put on an amount of time I don't mean any rude but since I've had multiple requests on a bipartisan basis to meet with him and he's turned everyone down that Rings Hollow my colleagues out of time and I would just caution colleagues we got plenty of differences around here but accusing Witnesses of lying is over the line I accept that and I did not mean that for the Madam Secretary who was merely saying that what she's been told I'm saying it for a an empiric observation when the President says he's ready to meet and he's turned down more time and the gentleman's expired accusing Witnesses of lying but I did not accuse her next we have Senator carper well welcome to the finance committee secretary Yellen thank you very much we're normally a pretty jovial group but uh we'll get back on track here in a sec but thanks thanks so much for joining us thanks for taking on a tough job and uh and uh making us proud as you know one of our country's most significant achievements I believe over the last decade or so uh and Congress was a passage of inflation reduction act maybe right on the heels of the bipartisan infrastructure legislation that some of us right here at this table help to to write in particular the clean energy tax incentives included in the the inflation reduction act which were authorized and passed by this committee a bunch of us had a chance to work on them will help us to achieve our climate goals and hopefully save our planet all while creating good paying jobs here in the United States that's what we call in Delaware a win-win situation however in order to realize the full potential of the law it's critical that the American people are not only made aware of these credits but they they have a clear guidance on their eligibility to benefit from these credits this is especially true for some of the provisions in the law that are targeted to lower income and rural community in that Spirit how is the treasury Department working to increase awareness of these new clean energy incentives and make it as easy as possible for taxpayers to understand their eligibility for these credits it's an important question and let me just say that this is a very top priority for Treasury and our office of um tax policy there are enormous benefits here for households and for clean energy we need to write numerous regulations to implement the IRA programs from prevailing wage and apprenticeships to electric vehicles and advanced electric energy prod projects and we're working very hard on that guidance and when we've devised those regulations I think they will help to provide Clarity that taxpayers need make sure that the goals of the IRA are met and will need to find ways of publicizing those programs so that taxpayers know what they're eligible for there are benefits for Investing For example an electric heat pump pumps or energy efficient Appliance says and will need to work to make sure that this information is available to households so they can take advantage of these credits thanks Todd thanks for that response my second question um also relating to the IRS but IRS funding implementation another significant accomplishment included in the inflation reduction Act was the badly needed investment to revitalize the IRS in one in part to help them provide better service the people that are going to be calling them especially as they prepare their tax returns but as as the chairman mentioned earlier taxpayers are already reaping the rewards of this funding and since the passage of the law the IRS is used I'm told nearly one billion dollars to boost taxpayer services including hiring thousands of workers to help answer phone calls and support walk-ins tax clinics and because of these Investments the IRS listen listen to this this is worth listening to the IRS says I'm total answering 98 of phone calls from a taxpayers seeking help during this filing season I have a friend you ask him how he's doing he says compared to what well compared to about a year ago that number was not 90 percent it was thirteen percent that's uh and that's uh not perfect but it's a one heck of a lot better than it was and we're just getting started and with the IRS commissioner Danny werfel at the home Mike thanks to everybody in this committee who supported his his confirmation these investments will ensure that the IRS can modernize their technology in their Workforce to meet the needs of everyday taxpayers while improving the fairness or tax system question is the IRS puts this funding to work how should policy makers like us evaluate the success of these critical Investments and what outcomes can the American people expect in the years to come please so a simple metric is customer service what fraction of phone calls are answered and you mentioned 13 I promised uh that this tax filing season with the money from the IRA that would rise to 85 percent we've been measuring it and it varies from week to week but it's been consistently between 80 and 90 percent and there are other metrics we can look at speed of refunds that taxpayers re receive backlogs in the amount of paper that they're dealing with and um I believe this money will certainly lead to faster responses to taxpayers more efficient and easier ways for them to for example deposit deposit checks directly into their accounts their we will invent many metrics that I'm sure we'll be able to enable you to monitor how this money is improving we welcome those metrics keep up the keep us heading in the right direction it's very encouraging I think I thank my colleague Senator Bennett was gracious enough to give his time to Senator Cassidy so the next three will be Senator Brown Center soon and then Senator Bennett Senator Brown thank you Mr chairman secretary young thanks for your work uh this weekend and our phone conversations and so much of what you did uh for the financial system without taxpayers footing the Bill thank you and that I spoke to a number at your recommendation really small businesses in Ohio that were worried about making payroll they were all over the country I Senator Romney talked about his in Utah everywhere and I spoke to Banks and Credit Unions who understand how important it was to have confidence in the what you did gave them that confidence so thank you bank failures are a painful reminder about the importance of strong safeguards it's the same thing maybe it's just what I'm thinking about so much but it's the same thing when I think about the disaster in East Palestine the railroad railroad lobbyists continue just aggressively to Lobby this body and to Lobby The Regulators and they succeed in weaker standards for communities and for workers and for railroad safety we see the same kind of aggressive lobbying from Bank lobbyists to weakened standards the administration weakened standards the previous administration weakening under 2155 those standards so I um I appreciate how you stand up strong in these issues I might just today earlier you haven't seen it yet I sent you another Regulators a letter urging you to do a full review of bank failures and strength and guardrails so this doesn't happen again so thank you what you've what you have done and will continue to do there are three pretty quick questions I hope um the inflation reduction Act created new tax credits to support the domestic solar industry as treasury finalizes rules will you ensure that China's solar industry can't profit from these credits without developing a genuine domestic supply chain um yes the purpose of one purpose of Ira is to make sure that we reduce our dependence on China and have um a strong domestic uh capacity and uh the features of the law uh guarantee guarantee that and we're working on guidance to implement the law that will lead to that result thank you Ohio has the biggest solar about to have the biggest solar manufacturer in North America we will continue working that in Mr chairman I you know I can't come to this committee when secretary Yellen is testifying and not bring up the child tax credit um I want to thank you again for helping us I mean it was it was not unprecedented but remarkable perhaps we passed that bill in March President signed President Biden signed it two years ago signed it quickly you got up and running the child tax credit by July 60 million children and their families benefited from that it was so important we've heard some on the other side that find all kinds of made up or partially made up reasons to oppose the child tax credit they want to cut taxes but not for Middle income and low-income families president Trump's IRS commissioner asked Congress to give IRS an assessment an authority necessary to establish minimum competency standards for paid tax preparers uh this these these issues about CTC and eitc error rates are always exaggerated by the other side and my question is this a paid tax preparers had to demonstrate a bare minimum expertise do you think we'd see fewer errors with both the ITC and CTC do you think Congress should give IRS this Authority yes I believe that Congress should I support that proposal at present incompetent and dishonest paid preparers disadvantage taxpayers and under mind confidence in the tax system and I believe IRS should have the authority to oversee paid preparers and make sure that they help taxpayers file more accurate returns and in turn that would protect them from penalties and interest costs from poor quality advice that some now receive thank you I wish my colleagues were as interested in in tax cheating among billionaires is they were low-income people but I guess that's just the way politics in 2023 seems to work last question I want to start I want to let's ask you about another Fiasco that should be easy to avoid the debt limit it's the definition of a self-inflicted blow to the economy instead of ensuring we avoid default by paying all our bills in time some Republicans are pursuing a path we all know won't work and I want you to comment what you said before that debt prioritization isn't feasible you've called it default by another name your words but Republicans are moving forward anyway with a bill that ranks what order payments should go out they put Wall Street and China at the front of the line if treasury followed this Republican plan bearing in mind that China holds about a trillion dollars in U.S debt who would get paid First China or seniors receiving Social Security in vets receiving VA benefits well if that were prioritized China would get paid ahead of them we we believe I believe that prior prioritization of payments as you said is default by another name we need to pay our bills we need to pay all of our bills that um willingness and commitment to be um responsible in paying bills that have already been incurred is what underlies the United States's strong credit rating and credit rating agencies like Fitch have already weighed in that if we were to fail to pay um any of our bills that that would call into question whether or not we deserve our current our current credit rating and it's simply a recipe for economic and financial catastrophe to think we can pay some of our bills and not all of them thank you this debt prioritization sounds like an another version of Senator Scott's privatization of Medicare and Social Security it makes no sense to the country and to most of us thank you Mr chairman thank you and I I will just tell my colleague in red counties in Oregon over the weekend I went through this idea that we'd pay China and Wall Street first and people were just stunned so I think you made a very important Point Senator Bennett is next thank you Mr chairman and thank you Madam Secretary I want to ask you a couple questions about the banking situation that we're facing today but I I just want to start Mr chairman because I've heard this discussion on the other side about the deficit you know I've been here for 14 years the deficit and the debt hasn't gotten any better over that period of time but I think it and and and the good news is if we want to work together we could actually close the gap because the Gap isn't that that gigantic compared to the way it's been in other places if we could get it to a place where our our government our deficit wasn't growing faster than uh than our GDP um that that would be a really good step forward but I just want to point out that we need to recognize that we have this problem today this Gab because of the Bush and Trump tax cuts and the the deal that made 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent a deal that I and Tom Carper were the only Democrats to vote against there were three Republicans who voted against it when you combine that and when you combine that with what we did with the Trump tax cuts that's two percent plus one percent of GDP that's three percent of GDP right there so we would have closed that Gap and it went well on our way so I'm not you know I I know that I know that it's going to be a mix of spending cuts and it's going to be a mix of Revenue and that's how we get back to a place where you know you get a 19 of GDP of tax taxes and a 19 of GDP of spending that's a felicitous place for us to be because you know maybe before we're dead we actually will move beyond the political talking points and do something useful for our kids and our grandkids but I just want the math to reflect that and that's why I voted against that bill that's why I think Tom Carper voted against that bill and I said you know in my completely unnoticed campaign for president on a debate stage with the pro thank you you're nice to say so but with I said with who a person who became the president United States that that was a terrible deal that was struck between the Obama Administration and the um and Mitch McConnell frankly to extend those tax cuts permanently so until we get to a place where we're willing to actually have a rational conversation about what it looks like what every single state in the Union I'm aware of the conversation they have to have because they have you know a duty and a responsibility to actually balance their budget and I'm not even saying we have to balance it let's just get to a place where our debt is less than three percent of our GDP we can make some progress and there isn't a committee in Congress that is better situated than this committee to do it that's not even what I wanted to talk to you about I want to talk to you about the child tax credit Madam Secretary and all the evidence that we have that it worked it did what it was supposed to do and that you guys did an amazing job of implementing it and so I'm going to leave that question for the record as well I just want to go to the banking issue that we have in front of us right now Madam Secretary it's obvious to you and to me that marijuana I'm going to get to the banking but marijuana has been legal in Colorado for nine years but legal cannabis businesses are frozen out of the financial system the finances Banks refuse to provide them Financial Services because of strict federal laws and regulations that prohibit them from offering services to cannabis businesses banking Regulators can permanently ban someone from working at a bank or revoke an institutions FDIC coverage for working with cannabis businesses this endangers the lives and livelihoods of Colorado business owners who have to operate in in this kind of situation they have nowhere to put their cash last weekend Signature Bank failed the other bank that failed Silicon Valley Bank you know here's what they had to do to fail they had to not observe the fact that their balance sheet had basically tripled over you know some period of time not observe the fact that they were in a in a in a in a volatile high-tech industry where the the tide comes in and goes out for all those tech companies at exactly the same time which is what we're seeing today they had to make a decision to lay on 10-year paper with ridiculously high interest rates they weren't even that high but compared to I'm sorry low interest rates compared to the interest rates that we were about to be challenged by the fed and I can tell you unless somebody around here knows say I don't know Jay Powell wasn't exactly secretive about what he was doing with that they had to get that through their board they had to get that through that audit committee and somehow they had to get that through a regulator I guess who was looking over that who wasn't saying this is insane what they were doing we had all week it's been is it Dodd-Frank not that Frank 2018 not 2018. I don't know what the answer is going to be about any of that but I know that what they were doing was not prudentially sound and I hope that the regulator would be the backstop I'm 30 seconds over so I will stop to go back to my marijuana question last weekend Signature Bank failed and almost a fifth of its deposits came from crypto like they're not allowed to do anything with marijuana but apparently they can lay 20 percent of this on on crypto a notoriously unstable you know a thing that nobody here even understands and where the value of the assets can soar and collapse we've seen that in this sector and my question is what questions come to your mind when you see that when you've got a bank that's now failed where 20 percent of you know what it was relying on to claim that it was doing the right thing by its depositors was something I would argue isn't even as stable as the marijuana industry in the state of Colorado which can't get any approval from the treasury Department well as you pointed out in the case of marijuana it is against federal law and that's a barrier unfortunately to appropriate banking services for the industry and it's something The Regulators have been looking for solutions to I think we need to look into The Regulators do exactly what happened to create the problems that these two banks that failed faced and make sure that our regulatory system and supervision is appropriately geared so that Banks manage their risks to avoid problems of the type that these banks have suffered from Senator Bennett thank you and thank you for always being there to point out when numbers don't add up because that's exactly what the budget chairman who's a member of this committee Senator White House just found a couple days ago with respect to the health Republican senator Warner's next um thank you Mr chairman and Madam Secretary it's great to see you and let me commend my dear friend from Colorado I've always noticed Senator Bennett what you do and I think you raised uh great issues and I think about one of the first gangs that you and Senator crapo and I and others on Simpson polls wasn't perfect but man we'd be a heck of a lot further down the path if we had taken that let me also um mention I'm going to talk something I think that's not been raised on the banking issue and I want to join a lot of my colleagues I think you the Fed the FDIC move very aggressively I think the potential downside risk for businesses across the country for other medium-sized Banks across the industry could have been a disaster and I think the actions you took were bold and stepped up and and shored up the system um and I'm of the belief that uh echoing what Senator Bennett said that traditional Prudential regulation should have caught this where was the bank management where were the Regulators both state and federal in the case of svb um they didn't get this interest rate mismatch caught much much earlier but the one the one thing though that I I worry about whatever regulatory system we had in place the other half of what happened that happened sometime between Tuesday and Thursday afternoon where we've seen now the very first social media internet-based Bank Run put this in any kind of comparison you know when WAMU failed the largest bank failure in our country's history 16 billion dollars coming out over a 10-day period I don't sure what regulatory system anywhere no matter how much Capital no matter how many stress tests that would have protected any institution from a 42 Billion Dollar Bank Run in a single day that literally at that point was 25 cents on the dollar of every dollar that was deposited you know I think we most of us have all seen It's a Wonderful Life um we realized that that money was off in small businesses and started business around the country question I have is who's playing the role of Mr Potter I think there were some and I listen I've got I've been supportive of the Venture Capital Community I was venture capitalist before but I think there were some Bad actors in The VC community who literally started to Spur this run by virtually cry crying fire in a crowded theater in terms of rushing all of these deposits out and I'm not sure that we have anything in our existing regulatory structure and I don't and it's early on and we need to figure out what happened and who missed this but this notion that you know 25 cents on every dollar can rush out in a single day and people who spur this online Tuesday and Wednesday night bear no responsibility in the hypocrisy of some who are who are libertarian until the stuff hits the fan and then want relief is is is is frankly um more than a little repugnant so early on this is not normally within the traditional banking regulatory but I I think this will go down as the the history's first internet-driven run you have any initial thoughts on this well you know no matter how strong capital and liquidity supervision are if a bank has an overwhelming run that's spurred by social media or whatever so that it's seeing deposits flee um at that pace um Bank can be put in danger of failing of course there's backup liquidity there's the fed's discount window but this is really can be a threat to Banks and one of the reasons we um intervened and declared a systemic risk exception is because of the recognition there can be contagion in situations like this and other Banks can then fall prey to the same kinds of runs which we certainly want to avoid but this was a bank that had a very high ratio of uninsured depositors insured depositors and Retail customers are usually usually do not run we tend um not to see runs among insured depositors but um the liquidity requirements and needs of a bank with such heavy Reliance on uninsured deposits that are runnable I think we need to think about that and I agree and you know in a complete concentration in an industry sector but the the notion and again I don't I don't have a I don't have a solution in mind yet but the idea that there is no responsibility for the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater and forcing that run using technology as a mechanism to accelerate that you know presents a problem that I think I hope we could all kind of put our heads jointly together on thank you Mr chairman thank my colleague our next three would be Senator thune Senator Lankford and Senator Cortez Mesto Senator thank you Mr chairman Madam Secretary thank you for being here and chairman um would you characterize the pandemic as being over we're still living with um covid its impact on America has diminished but it's still certainly exists exists and um is is uh affecting affecting the economy I think for for all practical purposes you know most people acknowledge yes there's some overhang but that it is over um and so just out of curiosity how much of your Workforce is back in the office we're basically back to business as usual um although we have policies that enable a certain amount of work from home as most most companies and offices do it's it's a practical inefficient way to conduct business these days there are some things that that may be true and this isn't your directly your purview maybe it's a better question for the banking Regulators but I would be curious to know how much of their Workforce is actually back in the office and functioning because it seems to me that from a supervisory standpoint if your job is to examine Banks that's something that you kind of have to be there to do and it seems to me at least in your agency as recently as when we were talking about the inflation reduction act back in August my understanding at that time was less than half back in the office if that's uh if that's up I'd like to know what the updated number is on that let me ask you um will you commit to uh to keeping this committee apprised of the treasury's findings when it comes to svbs what you find there in a timely and thorough manner um we we certainly will keep this committee updated however um much of the investigation um of what happened at this bank would be done by the FDIC and so that's that's uh inappropriate source of information and we will we'll make sure we ask them that same question but I I know that you'll be involved I mean this obviously is something that you know dramatically impacts the economy and would be uh something uh significantly of Interest I would think the treasury Department I and I'm hopeful you'll stick to that commitment in a previous finance committee hearing you gave your quote absolute word to keep us updated on treasury's findings about the private taxpayer data that was improperly shared from the IRS to propublica it's been almost two years since that breach of taxpayer data was made public administration still still hasn't provided a meaningful response and you can answer that but let me go move on here I want to ask a question about the actions taken by the administration to shore up the Silicon Valley Bank and others the treasury issued a joint statement that stated and I quote no losses will be borne by the taxpayer do you stand by that statement yes and I just want to stress this uh is something that's deeply important to taxpayers and I think it's something that I and expect a lot of my colleagues hopefully on both sides of the aisle will be strictly holding this Administration to account on um you in in the ira got an additional 80 billion dollars six times the annual budget of the IRS through the I should say are not directly treasury but the IRS and um 87 000 new employees now the request in this year's budget because that's we're talking about here today is for an additional 15 percent increase uh somewhere on the order of 29 or 30 billion dollars in additional we still don't have the plan for the 80 billion in IRS funding and there was supposed to be a plan made public uh several weeks ago so could you speak to uh when we might see a plan since there's a request now for additional funding above and beyond what was a massive historic amount of funding in the ira So the plan is almost complete and you should have it in the near future and what does that mean near future in a matter of weeks okay all right I hope that uh you can you can follow through on that um and let me just ask with respect to the use of that 80 billion dollars some of it I know was supposed to be funded toward taxpayer Services which I hope is the case because the the IRS has had a deplorable record in getting back to taxpayers uh 13 phone call return rate uh how much that 80 billion dollars is going to be directed to enforcement and does the uh treasury expect that any of that revenue is going to come from increased audits of middle class taxpayers the president and I have committed that there will be no increase in audit rates on individuals or small businesses under four hundred thousand dollars and I stand by that pledge and I've issued a directive to IRS to that effect and most of the hiring the large numbers that are seen are replacement of people who are retiring but there will be additional hiring both of customer service Representatives five thousand more were hired this season and the response rate has gone from the 13 percent you mentioned to around 85 percent this tax season and we want to keep it at that level and add other things that will make filing and interacting with the IRS more convenient for both individuals and for businesses but an important goal is greater enforcement hiring of skilled tax lawyers and and Auditors and accountants to deal with high high income and high net worth individuals complex Partnerships and um corporations where we think most of the tax Gap is centered and so although 80 80 billion dollars over 10 years it sounds like a huge investment it's one with a an enormous payoff that it substantially lowers the budget deficit because we have a huge tax Gap it needs to be a time my friends expired we're going to push very hard to get every Finance member a chance to ask their questions before we go next will be Senator Lankford Center Cortez Master we've got the secretary till one Senator Langford thank you secretary thanks for being here uh there's a lot of things that I wanted to be able to talk about on this we've got some tax proposals on the table I have a bipartisan uh charitable act uh dealing with tax policy uh that we're not gonna have time to be able to talk through I'd like to be able to talk about full expensing uh Senator to me used to be able to uh champion this but it's a big issue for our manufacturers in my state and all around the country love to get a chance to talk about that I'd love to talk about marriage penalties and the tax code because quite frankly they're still there it's one of the things we've got to be able to work on energy Independence I did notice a whole new set of new taxes on energy companies in the United States that I think would hurt our independence and there's still no definition for the 600 if you do venmo payments to somebody up to 600 now the IRS is going to track you I've noticed that you've delayed that and the IRS has delayed that but there's a lot of questions with that and new creative definitions of what it means to be made in America we now have new treaties that are popping up that are not really treaties not really the free trade agreements but are being declared free trade agreements to allow for the inflation reduction act actions from Japan and Germany to now be defined as made in America I find that very creative love to talk about all that I don't have time I need to be able to drill on a couple things let me start with some of the banking issues we're dealing with on it will the deposits in every Community Bank in Oklahoma regardless of their size be fully insured now are they fully recovered every Bank every Community Bank in Oklahoma regardless of the size of the deposit will they get the same treatment that svbp just got or Signature Bank just got a bank only gets that treatment if a majority of the FDIC board a super majority is super majority of the FED board and I in consultation with the president determine that the failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences so what is your plan that determination right so so what is your plan to keep large depositors from moving their funds out of Community Banks into the big Banks we have seen the mergers of banks over the past decade I'm concerned you're about to accelerate that by encouraging anyone who has a large deposit in Community Bank to say we're not going to make you whole but if you go to one of our preferred Banks we will make you whole at that point um look I mean we're that's certainly not something that we're encouraging that is happening right now that is happening because depositors are concerned about the bank failures that have happened and whether or not other Banks could also uh no it's happening because you're fully insured no matter what the amount is if you're in a big Bank you're not fully insured if you're in a Community Bank well you're not fully insured and you you were in signature and it was it just barely met that threshold you were at signature well we felt that there was a serious risk of contagion that could have brought down and triggered runs on many banks um and that something given that our judgment is that the banking system overall is safe and sound depositories should have confidence in the system and we took these actions so there's a special assessment that's been done on Community Banks in my state and all banks across the country was there any discussion that that special assessment would only apply to the larger Banks or was it always assumed the special assessment would cover every Bank including rural banks in my state um I I think I I'm not certain what the rules are around that um that that's for the FDIC to determine it has been reported publicly that uh svb had a large number of Chinese investors that are there including some that were companies directly connected to the Chinese Communist Party will those individual those individuals companies entities and investors that are Chinese investors be made whole based on Assessments in my banks in Oklahoma so what I'm asking is will my banks in Oklahoma pay a special assessment to be able to make Chinese investors whole from Silicon Valley Bank uninsured investors will be made whole in that bank and I suppose that could include foreign and foreign depositors but I don't believe there's any legal basis to discriminate among uninsured I get it but I'm just saying my Community Banks are going to pay this additional fee it is always fascinating to me as well the conversation that taxpayers are being made whole in this taxpayers are not going to have any kind of consequence on this I'm sure my Bankers are going to be very excited to know they no longer pay taxes and their banks no longer pay taxes credit unions don't pay taxes Banks do and so they're definitely taxpayers as well and all banks make their revenue off of rates and fees and such to their account holders which means every Oklahoman will pay higher fees lapse of the banking system and its Economic Consequences that will have very severe effects on banks in Oklahoma that will also be threatened I'm just worried about this word about the long term we are going to have to move on we're not going to get all senators in Senator Cortez master thank you Mr chairman secretary Yellen it's always good to see you thank you thank you before we get to the banking and the budget let me ask you something that's um important in my seat and I think across the country quite honestly these are the low income solar tax credits um and uh it is a question that I asked commissioner warful regarding section 13103 of the inflation reduction Act which provides a bonus investment tax credit for certain renewable energy Investments that were made in low-income communities the February guidance that treasury puts out provides the potential applications will only be considered for this tax credit during limited application windows and this limit this is my concern will solar will limit solar deployment and the ability to drive clean energy investment in these communities because the Investments with tax credits happens when you have certainty up front that the credit can be used it's especially important because the law requires that the bonus credit that we put in the inflation reduction act be tied directly towards reductions in energy bills for consumers so in light of these challenges in the headwinds facing the solar industry I'm going to talk a little bit about that as well can you share anything regarding the process for revising the guidance in in this very near future to meet the intent of congress not only here with the solar tax credit to ensure that people can access it in a timely way before it goes away but the guidance in general that you've talked about because everybody's waiting for guidance to be implementing the inflation reduction act proposals we put in there and concern about they're going to come to late before we can even utilize the opportunities all I can say is that we are working 24 7 on the guidance and regulations that need to be written in order to implement the um the various tax credits that are in the ira we have no higher priority at Treasury and we are really working tirelessly to get this done my understanding is that we've committed to open the first phase of applications for this Credit in the third quarter of this year and we will provide detailed guidance ahead of accepting applications so let me put a proposal out there and this is for some of my colleagues as well because I think in general the inflation reduction Act and the work that we have been doing to lead us into this Clean Energy Future requires a bridge to get us there requires a bridge to get us there and let me just say this I support the manufacturing here in this country and we need to build it and grow it but when it comes to solar we're not there yet I support the manufacturing that is happening in Ohio and here across this country but the manufacturing for the supplies that we need to grow out solar in this country is only has a capacity of 5.6 gigawatts now let me just say in 2022 we were able to actually install the demand was for 20.2 gigawatts so we're at a deficit there and if we don't get these supplies if we don't have what we need to address uh bringing these supplies here from somewhere and and deal with the tariffs that are out there that are limiting our access to these supplies we are going to be limited to the amount that we can grow our clean energy in this country through solar so that's what I would love the administration to keep in mind my colleagues as well that yes we want to make sure that we're getting our supplies from countries that we support that our friends that are our partners absolutely but until we grow our domestic manufacturing here we are not going to meet the demand for solar in this country that we need right now well there is substantial incentives in this legislation to bring Soul manufacturing of solar panels um to the United States and we're certainly picking up great interest among investors in moving manufacturing here we're trying to get out the regulations as rapidly as we possibly can to make sure that we provide the the certainty that's needed for those investors but there are big incentives in this package to do just that and we're excited to see what's happening and I don't mean to cut you off I only have so much time let me just talk about the budget real quick what I see here is it true that the federal deficit has been reduced by over 1.7 trillion just in the last two years yes that is true and it's also true what you said earlier that this budget proposed by this Administration looks at also an additional deficit reduction of 3. trillion years over 10 years that is correct so this Administration is concerned about reducing the deficit correct yes and the debt limit that we're talking about everybody's talking about that debt limit let's be fair let's talk in a bipartisan way that that debt was incurred by both previous Republican and Democratic administrations correct yes when we're talking about paying bills that um for uh spending in the Congress is authorized I appreciate that thank you I know I'm over my time I will submit the rest of my questions for the record thank you I think thank my colleague and I will just say during the 10-year Odyssey of developing those clean energy tax credits it was always our intent to have the bonus solar tax credit for low-income communities so we'll continue to work with my colleague thanks Hunter Warren uh thank you Mr chairman so on Friday the United States faced the second biggest bank failure in our entire history and his Panic spray read among small businesses and non-profits that had money deposited with Silicon Valley Bank Treasury and other Financial Regulators announced they would take emergency measures to stabilize the system I'm grateful for the administration's Steady Hand but we shouldn't have had to be here in the first place these bank failures were the direct result of policy makers decisions over the last five years beginning with a 2018 law signed by President Trump with the support of both parties to weaken the regulations that have been put in place after the 2008 financial crisis to ensure that big Banks never again crashed our economy on Monday President Biden called on Congress and Regulators to quote strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure will happen again end quote secretary yelling thank you for being here today do you agree with the president that we need to strengthen our banking rules well I think we certainly need to analyze carefully what happened that triggered these bank failures and re-examine our rules and supervision and make sure that they're appropriate to address the risk that Banks face okay so we want to make sure we've got the right rules in place um and pretty obvious we need some stronger rules here so I want to talk about those rules the stress test stress tests are critical tools in the regulatory toolbox that are designed to expose Banks vulnerabilities if bad things happen and force the banks to shore up any weak points before it's too late now secretary Yellen when you are implementing the Dodd-Frank regulations as Fed chair six years ago back in 2017 you said quote our stress testing regime is forcing Banks to greatly improve their risk management and capital planning end quote but you warned that because quote we can never be confident that there won't be another financial crisis it is important that we maintain the improvements that have been put in place that mitigate the risk and the potential damage end quote so I want to talk about those stress tests that you talked out how important they were six years ago secretary Yellen can regular rigorous well-designed stress tests help Bank Regulators spot problems lurking in Banks balance sheets and business models yes I continued uh endorse the comments good you quoted I think this has been one of the most important and consequential improvements in supervision since the financial crisis so but two thumbs up for stress tests let me just ask when Regulators spot these problems early on can those Regulators then require the banks to clean up the problems long before they trigger a run on the bank yes and in that sense they're useful but I would like to make one point sure which is that the supervisory stress tests focus on Capital yes and not on liquidity and in these bank failures um liquidity played in importance so let's well let's ask the question then all the way around if stress tests are done right if we have robust stress tests the way you describe six years ago when you were still running the FED do they just test one thing that might go wrong or do they test for lots of different problems if they're done right if they're done right they test for many possible problems but they do not focus on liquidity okay but they test for many kinds of things that go wrong is that right potentially there are different scenarios every year and um so let me ask you then a related question is one of the problems that stress tests can expose is that you have managers who are not very good at managing risk or management that is otherwise doing a bad job that could put a bank in Jeopardy well that's the purpose of supervision and supervision stress tester one tool supervision is another tool that's um critical okay so it's very important we've got stress tests we've got supervision we've got a lot of pieces here to make this work in 2018 though Trump's Bank deregulation law and the door it opened for Fed chair Powell to further hack away at the rules created an exception to annual fed administered stress tests letting Banks from 50 billion to 250 billion effectively off the hook and that meant that a bank like svb which had 209 billion dollars in assets when it failed would be exempt from annual stress testing so the question I have here is if the law had not let's not just do stress tests it's stress test it's the whole package enhanced liquidity requirements that ensure that banks have enough cash on hand to meet their obligations particularly in times of stress Capital requirements that better position Banks to absorb losses regular resolution plans to help guide Regulators safely through winding down failed Banks all of these were weakened in 2018 and when svb failed uh this is a part in my view of the fed's actions that led to weaker regulation you know over the last few days we've heard a lot of Republicans say that this collapse wasn't their fault it was the banking Regulators who were asleep the wheel and believe me I have questions for a lot of the banking Regulators but Congress handed chair pal the flamethrower that he aimed at the banking rules in fact he said so himself I'll quote and then I'll quit when he announced that he was weakening regulations for the banks like sbv chair Powell said and I quote in the rules before us we are applying the discretion granted to us by the economic growth regulatory relief and consumer protection act translation Congress opened the door to weaker weaker regulations that I'm Waltzing right through it that's true Congress needs to close that door I'm sorry Mr chair my colleague has great experience in this and I apologize for having to cut people off Senator Johnson's next she's calling me okay thank you Mr chairman uh welcome secretary Yellen I just want to start do you know how much a dollar that you held at the start of the by Administration in January 2021 is worth today well we've had inflation and it's declined in its purchase it's worth 87 cents in your testimony said that inflation is the number one economic problem uh do you know what the inflation rate was at the start of the buying Administration in January 2021 it was substantially low it was 1.4 you said that inflation has many causes I agree with that by the way I would say that the number one economic problem is our debt and deficit and I would say that the top three causes of inflation are massive deficit spending uh the war on fossil fuels which have driven energy gasoline prices to record levels obviously supply chain dislocation that was caused by our miserably failed in incredibly stupid response to covid the pandemic but would you agree those are the top three causes of inflation uh deficit spending high energy costs and Supply dislocations I don't believe the deficit spending is one of the main causes you don't inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods so when you're printing all the style so do you know in the first three fiscal years the bind Administration you know how much the total deficit spending is going to be we had um an economic collapse that was caused by right and we were we were certainly coming out of that because there's all this pen on demand and it's sloshing around of trillions of dollars so I'll answer that question for you too the first three fiscal years of this Administration the total deficits would be about what 5.7 trillion dollars so now so now you're you're here testifying for the about the uh president's budget how much are the total deficits over that 10-year period according to the president's budget you don't know that off the top of your head um yeah it looks like I'm running out it's 17 trillion dollars okay yeah you're going to drive the debt from somewhere around 32 trillion up to about 50 trillion dollars correct yes but what what I believe is the single most important important metric for judging the fiscal stance of the country is real net interest as a share of GDP we have so so are you concerned when you when you take the debt from 32 to 50 trillion dollars are you concerned who's going to buy that debt and also at what rate they'll expect to be compensated for buying riskier and riskier debt are you concerned about that well if the net interest real net interest cost of the debt remains low relative to GDP and we're on this sustainable fiscal well we're not we're not we're not honestly Senator Cassie was talking about the president's demagoguery on Social Security unwillingness to meet to try and save Social Security uh if we do nothing and the Social Security trust fund Runs Out 2023 to 2025 about the end of the budget period are you concerned about are we going to have the financial wherewithal to plus up benefits to honor those promises I mean you think we're gonna with 50 trillion dollars in debt you know a debt succeeding our GDP aren't you concerned about our inability to honor those promises the interest cost on the debt as a share of our economy remains quite low throughout the 10-year Horizon of the president's budget it remains around one second you're also the one who said that very manageable you also said the set that inflation was transitory and it certainly isn't and I think chairman Powell certainly now agrees the fact that no we've got something going on here that's going to take a very long while unfortunately to ring out of our system uh not only you but the director OMB director young and members of The Other Side keep talking about uh that you're cutting deficits uh the deficit in 2021 obviously was high because the pandemic but in 2022 is about 1.4 trillion 2023 where things going to be about 1.6 trillion 2024 your uh projecting 1.85 trillion and again growing debt by no service it never drops below 1.5 trillion dollars how can you how can you claim that you're cutting deficits well it always is a comparison with the Baseline of what would happen if our policies acted and the increase in deficits would be larger um there's net deficit reduction just misleading the American public let me ask you one one final question uh because we always hear on the other side same thing from OMB director young yesterday that we want to make the rich pay their fair share so I mean the fact is and this is the latest figures we have from the treasury 2020 the top one percent made about 22 percent of income but they paid 42.3 percent of the income tax now I just I'm not going to ask you the metric at what point I mean how much of the total income tax should the top one percent pay before you'll consider and before President Biden will consider they're finally paying their fair share I mean they're paying double the income tax that they're being getting an income it's obviously highly Progressive rate by the way the bottom colleagues over his time and I want the witness to answer his question well I I believe that billionaires should pay um rates that are um not lower than what a teacher or firefighter paid okay the top one percent Senator my Cali got seven minutes that the top one percent the time of the gentleman the bottom 50 pay 3.1 we have a highly progressive tax system Senator Tillis you're next thank you Mr chair Madam Secretary just just real real quick on this question the president's budget I think assumes 4.3 percent of inflation through calendar year 2023. number one can you confirm that or give me a an accurate number if I'm wrong and then just describe for me how do we do that particularly in light of what's happened with svb and what I think we will continue to see monetary policy that's going to increase uh incrementally until we get inflation under control that creates other stressors for the banking Community but is it 4.3 percent and do you agree with that assumption did you say inflation yeah inflation for 23 we assume that inflation would run at Three percent at three percent and and where in the uh the tail end of March so you still believe given the inflation estimates we got that that's still a valid assumption it is coming down on the 12-month basis and okay if we could just get to the committee the uh the analysis that went into that I think could be helpful um I want to go back to Senator Warren's Quest our comments very quickly back in 2017 I think you were quoted before the Jeep The Joint economic committee with respect to Senate Bill 2155 that the FED would still be able to impose enhanced Prudential standards on firms if necessary and that the bill is a move in the right direction that would be a good enabling for the FED to appropriately tailor its supervision do you still stand by that statement yeah I didn't I I said that I thought telling tailoring is appropriate and I still believe that and I think the FED continues to have I guess the question that I have because I don't I don't agree with Senator Warrens the the premise of her questions it seems to me unless we oh and I should say that in that same time frame uh Mr torillo was responsible for implementing a bill that he publicly criticized Senate Bill 2155 he he did not like the bill he's over there helping implement it and yesterday when wasn't Winston had passed in 2018 he let he left no no I'm sorry when you were implementing Dodd-Frank I'm sorry so when you were implementing Dodd-Frank torillo was in play then we passed Senate Bill 2155 he was highly critical of it however he said as late as yesterday he doesn't believe that Senate Bill 2155 had anything to do with what occurred at Silicon Valley Bank and that his suspicion was that it was supervisory uh maybe supervisors not being aggressive and potentially using some of the discretionary regulatory regimens that were allowed in Senate Bill 2155 if you happen to have a specific bank that had activities where you should increase increase the level of supervision so it seems to me that here we're using 2155 as a red herring for something that I believe fundamentally is going to be a supervisory or regulatory lapse I want to ask you a question about oecd and my time remaining and I do want to get close to five minutes the Baseline agreement doesn't have what I consider to be the most basic standards for dispute resolution but it looks as if we still want to move forward with congressional action absent that um I also have some concerns with the exemptions that are in the agreement particularly with respect to China and I'm grossly summarizing my context to give you a chance to uh to respond but let me tell you even beyond the exceptions uh that benefits China and state on Enterprises this committee nor the committee on taxation has received the data and Analysis that you all used as a basis for negotiating the deal can I just simply get a commitment that the joint committee on Taxation and that this committee will get that data and Analysis as a part of our future consideration for the provision that has to come before Congress I'm sorry I'm not sure if you're talking about pillar 2 or pillar one um I think it's all of the above to the extent that we're both in the agreement well I think the analysis on pillar 2 has been done um correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the joint committee on taxation is looked at that and we've we've provided estimates as well that are used standard methods and can discuss that with you pillar one we'll submit a question for the record my time has expired we'll submit a question for the record to fully describe exactly what we're looking for and to the extent that it's possessed by some members then I'll stipulate that I was wrong but I'm going in with a little bit of a skeptical uh position thank you I thank my colleague for his courtesy and we'll have the staff the finance staff share what we have on pillar one and pillar two with my colleague Senator Blackburn is next thank you Mr chairman Madam Secretary thank you for being with us today I want to return to the svb issue and ask you I haven't heard you say today when were you first notified that there were problems with svb and when did you alert members of Congress what was that time like I believe that I first found out about the troubles at Silicon Valley Bank um I guess it was last Thursday last Thursday and then your notification of Congress came when um we the the bank was putting you just put that in writing for me so I don't uh waste my time I know Senator Langford to ask you about the deposit Insurance Fund and how that would affect our local banks and there's a lot of concern over this and I know you were uncertain about that if you would run the numbers on that and let us know a ballpark of what you think this would cost if you end up insuring everybody's deposit and then I have to ask you being from Tennessee you know we have a long and storied history of opposing nationalizing the banking system do you see this as a step to nationalize the banking system absolutely not I see this is a step toward stemming contagion that could come okay from the failure of these banks that would place um Community Banks okay across the country risk of runs as well that we want to thank you ma'am let me move to the inflation reduction act and that implementation I hear a lot about this from local Mayors and our state agencies there is a lot of money that can be doled out Treasury and other agencies are going to be required to issue guidance that hasn't come and so there's a lot of confusion there and I was looking at the structure and I want to make certain that I'm viewing this right you have you the deputy secretary the office of Ira implementation within treasury the office of Ira implementation in the IRS and Danny warfel who is the new recently confirmed IRS commissioner so with all of these bodies involved who is actually in charge who's the final decision maker on the guidance and the timeline for releasing that guidance will our office of tax policy drafts regulations and we go through a regular individuals with many many uh people in the process of drafting that and will go through full comment and review before finally let me ask you something else because the buck stops with you uh you have um really praised the IRA I want to ask you one more thing about that because your statements contradict themselves somewhat you talk about the IRA as a way to really um bring prosperity to lower inflation to lower the debt so do you really believe that we can spend our way to lower inflation to debt reduction and to economic Prosperity I believe that I I believe that this law um promotes clean energy and r d and investment that's not my question do you believe we can spend our way to lower inflation and I'm going to move on obviously I've never said anything I've never said that I think that all right sir thank you to lower inflation uh you have mentioned the IRS help being able to answer more phone calls and respond more uh quickly because of the IRA funding and I was looking at the IRS data and it shows that the IRS actually answered 2.6 million fewer calls this March during the tax filing system season so and I know Senator soon asked you about this if we could get some clarity from you and from your testimony about this and how many what is the rate uh how often are these calls answered and missed what percentage of people at the IRS are still working remotely and what is your timeline for bringing them all back I what I can tell you is that the response rate to customer calls has been between 80 and 90 percent every week during this tax filing season and that's a massive Improvement the the IRS hired 5 000 new people to put into customer service and that relied on funds from the irm has expired but the eight Corners data call that the IRS gave in early March the IRS says they've actually answered 2.6 million fewer calls will there make tax filing season there may have been fewer calls but the rate of response was very much higher secretary we do need to move on Senator Menendez the Federal reserve's Emergency lending facility is predicated upon the notion that Treasury and agency Securities have no credit risk that facility will be expending extending loans of up to a year using these Securities as collateral but one problem potential problem is that unless Congress raises the debt ceiling in the next few months U.S treasury and agency Securities will face the prospect of default now while I certainly won't vote to default on the debt I think some of my colleagues may not feel the same way in light of the events in the financial system over the past week how damaging would a debt default be to our banking sector particularly to Regional Banks it would completely devastating and I don't think that Congress should for a second contemplate the possibility of not raising the debt ceiling to pay our bills this is the Cornerstone of um what what makes our financial markets the soundest and best in the world and people trust that the government stands ready to pay its bills and obviously if we're using treasury Securities to back up the loans that we're making if those treasury Securities default then we have a a cascading effect it's beyond contemplation is it possible uh I should say isn't it possible that if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling well before any default that we could run the risk of seeing more runs on Regional Banks yes we well we have seen that concern about whether Congress would meet this responsibility has provoked um concern in financial markets that was evident for example in 2011 when there was a downgrading of the U.S credit rating because of doubts as to whether or not Congress would act appropriately well the fact is that a debt ceiling fight has always been dangerous dangerous for our financial systems it's dangerous for our businesses yes it's dangerous for working families and it's dangerous to put at risk the U.S dollar as the reserve of choice in the world which others are seeking to replace Us in which has enormous benefits to us wouldn't you say that having our dollar as the reserve choices in the world yes I completely agree it's because in part because our financial system is so deep and treasuries are regarded as so safe and look liquid now in 2018 Congress passed a bill which was signed into law by President Trump that relaxed regulation for institutions like Silicon Valley Bank that law which I opposed Exempted those Banks from enhanced Prudential standards stress tests raising the Threshold at which a bank would be considered systemically important so even as the law kept Silicon Valley Bank off the list of systemically important institutions Regulators on a bipartisan basis rightly cited systemic risk to justify their actions over the weekend so secretary Yellen isn't it true that the situation at Silicon Valley Bank posed systemic risks well look I think it's it's important for Regulators the banking supervisors to examine what happened at this bank but clearly the bank had a very high proportion of uninsured deposits which made it vulnerable to runs and it experienced but if they're devastating run but Madam Secretary of the regulator said that the reason they're intervening because there was a systemic risk then it must have been systemic risk right well in the sense that the the chances of contagion that other Banks might be regarded as on sound and suffer runs um seemed seemed extremely high and the consequences would be very serious seems to me that institutions well we still have a lot to learn like Silicon Valley Bank have the potential to be systemically important and our laws and regulations to treat them as such let me close on the following in the president's budget proposal there is yet a glaring absence of a issue critical to families in my state and other states in the country the budget continues to allow C corporations to fully deduct state and local taxes as under current lawyers and that's the case not I'm not sure I I think so but yeah yeah well uh for the purpose of our discussion let me just assure you that the budget allows C corporations to fully deduct state and local taxes under current law but it does not propose the same tax benefit for middle-class families is that fair to say is one we think that Congress should address well I'll close by saying if C corporations can deduct state and local taxes middle-class families should be able to deduct state and local taxes thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Scott thank you Mr chairman and secretary Yellen thank you for being here this morning thank you also for the conversation that we had on Monday we may not always see eye to eye on a number of the issues but your availability was helpful and understanding appreciating the actions of the administration so thank you for that part thank you senator I'm sure you've seen and maybe even had a big hand in proposing some of the president's budget requests I can honestly spend hours talking about the president's budget and how much I dislike it I think it's bad for the economy I think it's bad for the American people we certainly see five trillion dollars of tax increases seven trillion dollars of spending the highest rate of taxes on individuals in the last 40 years and a new corporate tax rate higher than the tax rate imposed on Chinese Communist party on their own businesses more and more policies that undermine our own nation's energy Independence and energy security this isn't a budget that unifies the country this budget only seeks to isolate and divide us this budget simply said taxes too much and spends too much in the midst of all this budget talk however we are once again having to exercise important oversight over the federal regulators and agencies responsible for ensuring they're doing the job that Congress gave them the tools to do as such I want to spend some time discussing Silicon Valley Bank while there are many questions that might be that must be answered I do know a few things for sure first the bank failure failed because of its management and because of a sport I know that the failure of svb also was contributed to by a LAX regulatory environment I believe that the state and federal Regulators failed to appropriately use the tools they have to supervise and regulate the failed institutions and finally that the Biden's handling of the economy contributed to these bank failures the president's budget is further evidence of Reckless tax and spending that will only exacerbate the highest inflation we've seen in 40 years this impact will be felt by everyone and everything from grocery bills to financial institutions it appears that the San Francisco Fed was asleep at the wheel they failed to meet their basic not enhanced but basic supervisory responsibilities and therefore missed their opportunity to use enhanced supervisory tools if necessary instead of taking accountability for this blatant failure Regulators are now forecasting that they plan to increase regulations on the rest of the banking industry in other words the banks that made responsible business decisions and have not failed the failure to supervise is inexcusable and I plan to hold the Regulators accountable this administration's tax and spin Reckless policies fueled inflation and will only further lead to unmanageable inflation in higher and higher interest rates secretary Yellen will this Administration acknowledged that their Reckless taxes spending contributed to not only the challenges that we see in everyday households but also to challenges that we're facing today with svb inflation is to his two priority to bring it down and there are many contributors to why inflation is too high importantly Fallout from the pandemic and Russia's war on Ukraine that boosted food and energy prices many countries around the world suffer from the same problem regardless of what their fiscal policy was thank you I don't want to cut you off but I only have a minute left and I want to just with my synopsis there's no doubt that the pandemic was in the rearview mirror we saw the coveted relief response in January of 21 that spent 1.9 trillion dollars the only thing missing in that coveted relief bill was coveted relief which we had one percent for coveted vaccines under 10 for coveted related Health but we had a lot of liberal policies embedded in the two trillion dollars of spending which then LED an accelerated inflation to a 9.1 percent or a 40-year high the FED response to the high level of inflation was to have eight rate increases leading to a liquidity challenge that we are now seeing the results of thank you very much thank you Senator Hassan thank you ranking member crapo and uh for holding this hearing today thank you to you and the chair and secretary Yellen thank you so much for being here and for testifying before the committee um I would like to follow up on issues that my colleagues asked about uh concerning the recent actions that the Administration has taken to protect our economy last weekend the treasury and other agencies took several steps to strengthen public confidence following the failure of two Banks the priority of federal Regulators needs to continue to be protecting families and small businesses by ensuring the stability of our banking system and our economy more broadly given the events of the past week I'd like to understand how treasury is evaluating the effectiveness of its recent actions so what specific benchmarks are you using to measure the success of treasury's actions for example what are the economic indicators that you are actively monitoring well we're looking at indicators of the functioning and stress in the banking system we want to make sure make sure that um the problems that these two Banks don't spread to others and so we're monitoring very carefully the situation of banks in the United States using a wide range of indicators and a more General problem that concerns us is the possibility that if banks are under stress they might be reluctant to land where they're worried about Shoring up liquidity and capital and we could see uh ex credit become more expensive and less available and there are a variety of Statistics that we can look at to judge whether or not Banks are tightening credit things like the senior loan officers survey of credit terms and related statistics on the cost of borrowing because that could turn this into a source of significant downside economic risk well I appreciate that I think being really clear about what the goals are and having transparency about defining success is critical here and I just want to urge you and the administration to continue communicating with Congress as it closely monitors the situation to ensure that we have a coordinated and responsible and effective response to the entire situation I want to turn now to tax issues that are overseen by treasury last year my bipartisan home Energy savings act something I introduced with Senator Collins was signed into law this bill expanded tax cuts for homeowners who make Energy Efficiency upgrades such as installing a more HVAC system in their homes which also obviously lowers energy bills how is the treasury increasing awareness of these tax cuts for homeowners given the high energy and other costs that families are facing well as you point out there are really critical supports here for taxpayers they can get up to two thousand dollars for upgrades like uh heat pumps uh 30 on the cost of installing solar panels and so forth we've worked with IRS to publish plain language frequently asked questions on all of these credits and you can find this on the irs's IRA home page there there are also other sites something called clean energy.gov but really we want to get the word out broadly and we would be eager to work with you to discuss ways that we make sure homeowners know what they're eligible for well I would look forward to continuing to work on that obviously with high energy costs being what they are especially in the Northeast it's really really important that we get the the word out last question here along with Senator Brown I'm leading the effort to cut red tape for online sellers by reducing the number of casual online sellers who receive unnecessary and confusing 1099 tax forms it's important that we work across the aisle to find a bipartisan way to cut down on these unnecessary forms as Congress considers various ways to address this Challenge in a bipartisan way will treasury provide analysis of the impact of different proposals on online sellers certainly will try to work with you on that you know we were trying to implement a provision of the rescue plan that are required reporting of transactions over six hundred dollars um it's set to take effect this year but we realized that there were concerns broad concerns about that timeline and so we've delayed and will certainly we want to reduce confusion and we'll work with you to try to do that well I appreciate that very much and I I see that I'm out for time I will just note that there are a number of us in Congress who want to do more than delay it we want to correct what we think uh is a bad policy so thank you very much thank you Mr chair thank my colleague Senator young is next welcome Madam Secretary it's good to have you here for the committee I want to take a moment uh to begin to join my Republican colleagues in expressing uh my frustration and uh displeasure of the way the administration's handled the oecd pillar 2 negotiations um to that end uh Mr chairman I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my longer statement on this topic without objection to order thank you so to summarize this statement my concern is whether enacting the regime globally would undermine the incentive to invest in the United States and to grow jobs here in the United States I fear the answer that question is yes in particular the pillar to untaxed under tax profits rule would uniquely disadvantage American workers in job creating businesses by providing our trading partners with the political blessing to tax the U.S activity of U.S companies that's right let me repeat that foreign countries under the under tax profits rule with these negotiations could tax the U.S activity of U.S companies this would of course directly undercut our American sovereignty but it would also impact the legislative power of of tax writers to provide bipartisan well-crafted thoughtful economic incentives like the research and development tax Provisions important to our our Dynamic economy this credit which my bipartisan colleagues and and I are fighting so hard to protect and much more look to be wiped out under pillar 2. so Madam Secretary American workers in American companies deserve a better deal and I want to begin by asking you to go back to the negotiating table and and negotiating that deal for them moving on uh Madam Secretary as you know the President Biden has promised dozens of times that he won't raise taxes on anyone earning less than four hundred thousand dollars a year during the budget reconciliation exercise in August of last year that was our second budget reconciliation you'll recall I introduced the not one penny in taxes raised Amendment to allow the American people to hold members of Congress who agreed with that pledge and to hold the president accountable that Amendment passed the United States Senate by a vote of 98 to 1. 49 out of 50 of my Democratic colleagues agreed with Republicans we can't raise taxes when Americans are struggling Mr chairman I ask a unanimous consent that a copy of of my Amendment and the roll call votes be entered into the record not objections ordered secretary Yellen in in the view of the administration Which tax rates or other Provisions from the tax cuts in jobs act that are scheduled to Sunset after 2025. must be extended in order not to violate President Biden's pledge that no taxes will be increased on anyone earning less than four hundred thousand dollars for the benefit of all members in understanding these important red lines for the president United States please include all Provisions that you understand would cause the president's pledge to be violated if they are not extended will there certainly are aspects of tcja that if the sunset would impact households um or taxpayers earning under four hundred thousand dollars and the president has as you mentioned pledged he doesn't want to see taxes raised by a penny on anyone making under that that's right so he stands ready to work with Congress well no no the president made the pledge and and so I want to know the administration's position on this I know my Democratic colleagues will want to know it as well my time is short so can you please provide the specific tcgaa Provisions that have to be extended in order to keep President Biden's tax promise I don't know that I can provide you with that I think there are a lot of complicated provisions and exactly what happens to different taxpayers that is reasonable depend on you're a reasonable person I'm known as a reasonable person one right now that's two seconds over time so I just ask you Madam Secretary could could you commit to providing me and other members of this committee with that comprehensive list within two weeks from today that shouldn't be difficult you have an army of people supporting you I very complex exercise and I'm not sure is it complex to keep the pledge the the time of the gentleman's expired I want to work with the gentleman with respect to the updates on the tax laws well known that on our side we opposed it in your side you did the gentleman wants to know how we're going to proceed and the secretary said it's complicated I'm going to work with my colleague well let's let's work our way through the complications so we can all keep our our pledges not to that this cannot be violated I've told my constituents it will not be so and we agree with that and would like to work all right I'll look forward to that list thank you Senator Danes is next Mr chairman thank you secretary Yellen thanks for being here today thank you secretary Yellen the president's budget included 4.7 trillion dollars with a t in total tax hikes including 1.8 trillion dollars in new taxes on Main Street businesses the president's budget also includes a shadow tax increase on small businesses in Montana and across the country by remaining aptly silent on the future of the 20 pass-through business tax deduction we must remind ourselves that 95 of the businesses in the United States of America are pastors they're not C course and yet this budget was silenced on a 20 tax increase coming for many small businesses in the course of of 2026. I'm planning to reintroduce my Main Street tax certainty act in the coming weeks which would protect these businesses from this Shadow tax hike by making this important deduction permanent with the president's pledge in mind will you commit to making the 199 a deduction permanent I mean all I can really say is that the president has pledged not to raise taxes on individuals or small businesses making under four hundred thousand dollars but um no promises with respect beyond beyond that okay I'll take that as a no and move on to my next question uh Senator young raised this issue of a pillar two of The oecd Proposal which you spearheaded and have championed it's littered with these complex rules that would benefit state-owned Enterprises at the expense of capitalist competitors why are you a proponent for a framework that would allow China to tax American companies and I I understand this I was involved in global operations for most of my 20-year career in the private sector tax companies on their American operations if they fall below the minimum tax threshold even if they fall below the threshold but utilizing the bipartisan tax incentives such as the r d tax credit so um the agreement does permit it includes an under tax payments rule um by which other countries can exercise their rights to impose taxes on up on operations of foreign countries which would include China that that don't abide by the 15 percent tax on the United States can impose a Top-Up tax uh to ensure that those those revenues end up in the U.S uh treasury instead of in a foreign country move on to child tax credits as you know secretary young the 2017 tax cuts and jobs act doubled the tax child tax credit from a thousand dollars to two thousand dollars and increase refundability threshold to fourteen hundred dollars I was certainly disappointed at the time that all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle opposed this change and made it impossible to make it permanent but I am glad that we enacted as Republicans into law the president's budget proposes increasing the child tax credit from the current two thousand dollar to thirty six hundred dollars it makes it fully refundable and delivered on a monthly basis however I see they didn't make that change permanent it expires in 25 even though there's no limitations in a presidential budget to do so my question be this does the president believe that the child tax credit should be made permanent for thirty six hundred dollars and if so are you willing to then eliminate the salt deduction which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy to give Working Families an expanded child tax credit that importantly never ends so the president is very supportive of the child tax credit proposes to continue it for several years until many of the provisions in the individual income tax from tcja expire that affect exemptions in the child tax credit and then they'll need to be consideration of what to do but won't make that provision permanent is what you're saying the budget says it's going to expire in 25. that's that's because there needs to be a broader consideration it doesn't have to though the child test right there and make that permanent so we could we could debate the tax cuts supportive of it and we would look to work with you Senator Cantwell is next thank you Mr chairman secretary Yellen thank you so much for not just today but over the weekend and the much attention you've given to this issue it really does impact small businesses and while the name of a bank might be Silicon Valley Bank I guarantee you the Innovation economy comes through Seattle and probably many small businesses in my state were impacted by by what transpired and why we need to make sure that the banking system really does have mechanisms that help the startup economy and the innovation in my mind that's why we did chips and science is to let a lot of innovation unfold but people have to get financing so Jesse Salk the grandson of Jonas Salk is a molecular biologist and clinical oncologist who started twin strand biosciences in the state of Washington he and his team at twins strand are developing cutting-edge Gene sequencing techniques to help us fight cancer and he told my office this week that quote it was a big deal to step outside my comfort zone and start a company to help get a new genomic technology decree to help treat cancer patients faster the last thing I expected us to need to think about was if we could rely on a bank so the potential impact of Jesse's company having to pause or even cease operations due to banking failure isn't just jobs or dollars lost which are important considerations to our economy it's actually lives lost too so I again appreciate what the Federal Reserve the FDIC and everyone who stepped in but it never should happen in the first place so my questions really are about these small businesses again I think people think of them oh they're going to be giant businesses but at their start they are small businesses so and and I think Silicon Valley Bank was able to attract and and help further this so now where do we go where do we go are we going to push Jesse back towards a larger Bank um I'm I'm curious these one of the reasons why there was so much of a concentration is that there was a requirement by the bank that you have all of your Holdings in that bank and so I want to hear what you think about that how do we ensure that these small businesses uh feel safe in in putting their loans in are we just going to see how do we again treat a startup economy and allow these funds to work cost effectively and should we get rid of this requirement that they have to a requirement by a bank that says that they have to have all and to get these terms they have to have all their funds in that bank so I'm not aware of the requirement that you mentioned but certainly we want to make sure that depositors whether they're individuals or households or small businesses feel confident that the banks that they entrust their savings to or their working balances that they use to pay their workers we want to make sure that they feel confident that these banks are safe and that they can do business with them and that's an important reason why we stepped in with the FDIC in the Federal Reserve to intervene because I do believe the banking system in the United States is sound and resilient and we wanted to make sure that the problems at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank didn't undermine confidence in the soundness of banks around the country and um that's we wanted to make sure that there wasn't contagion that could affect other Banks and their depositors yep so it's a it's basically a requirement that they it's a you know an affirmative Covenant that they maintain all borrowers depositors that's something imposed by the bank yes yes on the startups as a way to Corral so I think this is why you had such a concentration and we should look at that as a particular issue um what about glass-steagall I've been a big supporter of glass-steagall and when you come to this moment and I keep thinking why did we ever allow us to have the co-mingling of separation of commercial and Investment Banking it seems to me that continuing to protect depositors and having a system where people can take risk and if they suffer laws okay but but that's not what we have we have such a commingled system now what do you think about re-looking at glass-steagall I'm not asking for the treasury secretary to make big news here I'm really just asking if you thought this same situation would have occurred the way it occurred if we had not in 2000 gotten rid of glass-steagall you know we're very focused right now on stabilizing the banking system ensuring up confidence and I think there will be plenty of time it will be appropriate to look at what happened and consider whether or not regulatory or supervisory changes are necessary and look forward to working with you in discussing what happened and what what responses appropriate but for now I would like to I would like to see confidence restored in the sadness of America thanks well I would just say this on this subject I believe in the information age and I believe one of America's Secrets is access to Capital so I want great access to Capital formation I don't want to see these uh in banking that understand startups go away I don't want it to be concentrated at Big Banks but I also want us to make sure that we have a system that is I think we see now from 2009 what happened and now this incident that the commingling of these things are giving people I'm not sure that's the way we get access to Capital I'm not sure that that's or at least we didn't have a system that protected us it didn't protect us in the end so we have to use something depository institutions they they weren't investment Banks yes they were views with respect to this matter next is Senator Whitehouse and Senator Casey thank you secretary Ellen I think you are the most available of all the cabinet members to come to hearings and I just want you to know that I appreciate it you seem quite Fearless about coming into the lions den and we're always grateful to have you you spoke recently to The Climate Financial Risk advisory committee and in your remarks you pointed out that climate change will likely become a source of shocks to the financial system that would lead to declines which this would be precipitated by declines and asset values that could Cascade through the financial system which is a warning that Freddie Mac has also made with respect to Coastal property values you added that Rising insured losses could cause insurers to pull back from high risk areas with potentially devastating consequences for property values we just had a hearing in my budget committee on Wildfire risk causing that effect to insurance and property markets and before that coastal flooding and storm risk causing that effect in insurance and property markets and then that the whole thing can spill over to other parts of our interconnected Financial system Again part of what Freddie Mac warned about that it would be worse than 2008. we also heard testimony that the coastal property value crash risk and the Wildfire property risk could perfectly well happen at the same time it's not a question of one or the other they could both come to pass so we all know that shocks and panics and collapses and disorderly transitions are notoriously hard to predict as to exactly when they will occur they're far easier to predict as to what their level of severity will be should they occur and my question to you setting aside timing how serious to the U.S economy could the economic shocks that you warned of in that speech be so I don't know how to quantify that for you but I do believe these are very serious risks the financial stability oversight council is prioritizing analyzing those risks and has recognized that they pose a systemic threat to American Financial stability The Regulators the banking Regulators fhfa are all taking steps to analyze the way in which these risks could affect find the financial system financial institutions and we created the committee that you referred to in order to bring expertise into this Enterprise but I think it's critically critically important in these are potentially deadly serious very severe risks um and just to for people who are not familiar with this particular Arena the word systemic risk sounds like a rather mild and inoffensive term but it actually refers to pretty devastating stuff does it not that is what systemic refers to exactly things that could Cascade throughout the financial system and have severe consequences for financial stability and the economy thank you um in the time that I have left I wanted to flag for you a letter that I will put into the record now if I may Mr chairman objection sorter that a great number of us on this committee uh signed to the acting director of fincen the chairman was a signatory of it Senator Grassley was signatory of it Senator Warren was a signatory of it and we are concerned that the development of the beneficial ownership rule has been far less than we had hoped and far less than we believed the actual statutory language directed both regarding the so-called access rule which is the subject of the letter and regarding the verification standard and regarding the court order requirement if you would be good enough to take this back to your team and make sure that you have a look at this and make sure that you approve of where they are going because I believe they have missed a very significant opportunity to significantly strengthen our battle against kleptocracy with the rather weak way in which these three parts of the rule have been rolled out thank you very much thank you that's for under advisement thank you I take it that way Senator Casey thank you Mr chairman secretary Yellen you you have been very patient I'm the last question and I'll try to keep within my time in light of your appearance here we're grateful for your time here we're grateful for your service to the country I did want to start just uh preliminarily by noting in earlier questioning about the phone call return rate at the IRS there have been statements made today that when some of whom some of which went unchallenged and am I right to say that last year the phone call return rate at the IRS was about a low number like 13 percent correct and the current number is between 80 and 90 that is correct that is important for the public record because I know that there's a narrative that the other side falsely um is perpetuating so 80 to 90 percent is a hell a lot better than 13 you have to comment on that but I'll I'll just date for the record huge huge Improvement and that's you know the IRS has been tremendously under resourced and the resources that Congress provided through the IRA are critically important they hired 5 000 customer service Representatives have made enormous progress in working through the paper backlog and are now we're going to see continued improvements and you know great improvements in customer service thanks so much for that I want to talk to you first about more broadly energy communities in particular Cole communities I live in Scranton Pennsylvania born and raised there still live there and happens to be the hometown of the president but we we live in a region that has basically five counties that were so-called anthracite hardcore counties historically and then in southwestern Pennsylvania you have a much larger number of counties that were so-called batuminous or soft coal counties I don't have to tell you most Americans know the story of what happened to that industry we're told though most recently that the Appalachian Regional commission reports that coal employment has fallen by some 62 percent over the last decade leading to broader decline in the region um and that's true in in these communities in Pennsylvania the report uh the they the report also indicates that overall private sector employment in in Appalachian coal counties that would of course go to West Virginia and several other uh States has been flat since a Great Recession but it was increasing in the non-coal communities in the ira the inflation reduction act I fought for an additional tax credit of 10 percent that would encourage private companies to build new energy manufacturing projects in these energy communities to date the treasury Department has not released guidance on how companies can claim these credits or guidance on what exactly or what exact areas qualify so without that guidance companies have been reluctant to announce new projects in these coal or energy communities and we've seen new investment flowing to non-energy communities sorry I'd ask him to tell us if you can when can Pennsylvania and other states that have these coal communities expect treasury to finalize the rules the guidance so these coal country communities can get their share of new jobs and investment this is a tremendously important provision we recognize how hard hit these communities are and how important this bonus is I can tell you that my staff is working utterly around the clock to write and Implement these regulations they're tremendously complex and we will do this it's a priority item we will do this as quickly as we possibly can um I I typically have several meetings a week with tax policy to make sure that things are moving as rapidly as we can make humanly possible and this is a priority item for us thank you secretary I appreciate that and the the next question I think I'll I'll submit for the record just want to preview it for you we have this bizarre circumstance in the tax code where corporations are given a tax break for for activities that are often union busting activities so they get a tax break for that and at the same time in the 2017 Bill tax bill passed here in the Senate a provision for union dues deduction and work expense deductions were taken away from individuals so the worker got a tax credit tax break taken away in in big corporations have had this benefit to allow them to Union bust and get a break for it I have a no tax break for union busting act with 30 of our colleagues that I'm trying to pass and I'll ask you a specific question about that but in the interest of time I'll submit that for the record thanks very much thank you Senator Madam Secretary I very much share Senator Casey's views I'm on his legislation for no tax breaks for union busting and I think you all have that dialogue about the energy community's provision Madam Secretary I think we call this a priority I'd like to designate it a super priority because Senator Casey led the effort for those energy communities in the effort on the IRA and I know it's extraordinarily important to a host of these communities where there's a history of one energy policy and we've got to get them The Help Center Casey's measure and vision so I thank him for that Madam Secretary we're going to let you leave in the kind of two minutes that I think we may have remaining so we keep you on the clock as usual you have accounted for yourself very well today thank you and I especially appreciate your saying for what I believe is the first time that prioritization of debt ceiling payments is just unworkable that is the message that needs to go out far and wide this committee and let the record show the secretary has again said that's correct uh this committee has jurisdiction over these issues relating the full faith and credit of the United States I very much appreciate what you're saying to us in your comments about clean energy your comments about housing you had the Waterfront in front of you to uh to talk about and I just want to make one point in wrapping up Republicans in their tax amendments these various tax amendments Define taxable income so as to give many billionaires a free pass on taxes and that is really what the difference is we feel very strongly about protecting all those firefighters and nurses and all the small business people we all share that view we are just unwilling as are you and the president to your credit to give billionaires a free pass and it is all about how these amendments Define taxable income which would basically keep billionaires from getting audited or paying little if any taxes for years on end so we look forward to working with you in the days ahead for the information members questions for the record for the secretary to do at 5 PM next Thursday March 23rd and the finance committee and we thank you again secretary Yellen is adjourned thank you chair widen

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Keywords: cbs news, news, live news, livestream, breaking news, congress, senate, hearing, video, capitol hill, treasury, secretary, janet yellen, budget, banking, silicon valley bank, signature bank, ron wyden, mike crapo

Id: CX6O--sk48A

Length: 174min 50sec (10490 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 16 2023