ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュの Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies before House Appropriations Committee

Mike Quigley: (00:00)
… first time before this sub-committee. Madam Secretary, thank you for being here today.
Janet Yellen: (00:06)Thank you.
Mike Quigley: (00:06)
The Department of the Treasury plays a vital role in stabilizing and supporting the U.S. economy. That did not go unnoticed as the sub-committee in Congress put together much needed relief packages to support individuals, families, businesses, industry, states, territories, tribes, counties and others affected by the COVID pandemic. We test treasury with leading much of the federal government’s relief, and I commend you and the hardworking staff at the department. You have worked tirelessly to implement these programs that have proved a critical lifeline to so many Americans struggling through these difficult times. We realize, however, that much more work remains to be done to ensure the economy that works for everyone. The fiscal year 2022 budget for the Department of the Treasury reflects that, requesting 14.9 billion, an increase of 1.4 billion over fiscal year 2021.
(01:04)
Within this amount, the administration and requests 13.2 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, an increase of 1.2 billion. In addition, the administration requests a $417 million discretionary cap adjustment for tax enforcement as part of a multi-year initiative to increase tax compliance and raise revenues. I’m eager to hear how these funds will help the IRS better identify those that are underpaying their tax obligations, and fulfill the goals outlined in Treasury’s report on the American Families Plan tax compliance agenda.
(01:42)
I’m also happy I to see for the first time in four years the budget requests does not propose to eliminate funding for community development financial institutions. This year’s budget supports CDFI at 330 million, a $60 million increase to drive capital and expand economic opportunity in distressed communities. I look forward to hearing about the expansion of this program, as well as the department’s roll out of 12 billion in emergency stimulus funds to CDFIs and minority depository institution to rebuild an invigorating low-income and underserved areas impacted by the pandemic.
(02:22)
I’m also pleased to see a significant increase in funding for the financial crimes enforcement network, to support the department’s effort to combat money laundering and safeguard financial system. The anti money laundering act of 2020, which was enacted at the beginning of this year is the first comprehensive revision to anti money laundering and countering the financial financing of terrorism laws in nearly 20 years.
(02:51)
The budget requests 191 billion for FinCEN and increase of 64 million to implement the numerous reforms mandated in this act. I look forward to discussing how these new authorities and additional funds will help treasury and FinCEN protect the integrity of the US financial system. Before I turned to secretary Yellen for her statement, I would like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. Womack, for his opening remarks.

Steve Womack: (03:17)
Thank you, Mr. Quigley, for the opportunity, and welcome to the committee, Secretary Yellen. First, let me congratulate you on your confirmation, and thank you on behalf of all of us for your many, many years of public service. You are the secretary of the treasury during a very challenging time as the country struggles with the economic impact of the global health pandemic. I appreciate the hard work all the staff at treasury have done over the past year to provide relief to struggling Americans. I’m hopeful that as more Americans are vaccinated, the economy will continue to dramatically improve. It wasn’t long ago, we were experiencing record growth, thanks to a lot of pro growth policies. In 2020, I supported all the bi-partisan COVID relief packages enacted, which provided economic relief to millions of Americans, along with addressing health needs, such as providing PPE, conducting testing in vaccine development.
(04:16)
However, I’m concerned that the latest relief package was enacted using reconciliation to avoid having to work with Republicans. Much of the spending included in that package has nothing to do with COVID, which is why the majority party could not get Republican support. As the country recovers from the pandemic and the economy starts to grow, I’m concerned that this excessive level of federal spending by the administration will lead to both inflation and massive debt that will hinder the recovery and burden future generations of Americans. I was hoping that the administration’s fiscal year 22 budget requests would begin to limit federal spending. Instead, the request proposes higher spending. The department requesting a double digit percent increase over fiscal 21. I’m certainly troubled with the administration’s tax proposals. I don’t see how increasing taxes on American corporations will help the economy grow, how it will create jobs, or help American companies compete globally. It’s also concerning that the department and financial regulators are getting involved in activities that are beyond your core mission.
(05:24)
For example, the IRS is spending more and more of its efforts on providing social safety net benefits instead of its fundamental duty of collecting taxes, processing returns, and conducting audits. Furthermore, the administration’s new executive order on climate change and financial risks will have a far reaching impact on the entire financial sector, on consumers, investors, on federal loan and procurement policies. As I said in yesterday’s hearing, such sweeping policy changes should not be addressed unilaterally by the administration.
(05:59)
Another area of great concern is the administration’s negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal. While Hamas is raining down Iranian made rockets on Israel, I think it’s reckless and unconscionable to try to appease Iran and its proxies. We must stand with Israel and hold Hamas and Iran accountable. I oppose the department weakening any sanctions against Iran.
(06:25)
In conclusion, I won’t be supporting the level of spending included in the president’s budget request. However, I do look forward to working with you, Chairman Quigley, and the other members of this committee in a bipartisan fashion to provide the department with a reasonable level of resources to accomplish your important core missions. I also look forward to working with you on the policy concerns that I’ve raised today. Once again, Madam Secretary, welcome to the committee. Chairman Quigley, thank you so much for the opportunity, and I yield back my time.
Mike Quigley: (06:59)
Thank you, Mr. Womack. Thank you, Secretary Yellen, for being here today. With that objection, your full written testimony will be entered into the record. With that in mind, we would ask you to please summarize your opening statement in approximately five minutes. Please begin.

Janet Yellen: (07:16)
Thank you, Chairman Quigley, ranking member Womack. Thank you for inviting me to join you today. I look forward to your questions, but first I want to briefly discuss the state of our economy and the state of the treasury department. I believe that one depends on the other. Our economy is recovering from the pandemic, but we still have a long road ahead of us. For this reason, I expect that economists will look back on this Congress’s decision to enact the American Rescue Plan and judge it very favorably. You had an option to provide just a few months of relief or continued support to see us through to the end of the crisis, and you chose the latter thanks to ARP and its predecessor legislation I’m confident that people will make it to the other side of the pandemic.
(08:14)
But as you know, in order for these dollars to effectively reach their intended targets, we have to stand up and manage new federal programs. The Treasury has been tasked with much of this work. We’re proud to do it. The challenge is, while our portfolio has grown to match the urgency of this moment, our annual budget has not grown in tandem, and the funding provided to administer new programs is temporary. Not accounting for inflation, our annual budget and still at the same inactive level as 2010, and critical policy offices like domestic finance, economic policy and tax policy have seen their budgets cut by as much as 20% since 2016.
(09:05)
The mismatch is very stark when you take a moment to scan the new bodies of work we have undertaken. Treasury has built a $350 billion program to help state local and tribal government start operating normally again. The national security loan program has distributed more than $700 million to contractors who were critical for our nation’s defense. The CERTS program will provide $2 billion to bus and ferry programs. There are two separate multi-billion dollar programs to help people pay their rent and mortgages. And of course, treasury administers economic impact payments. The IRS entered the pandemic as an agency that processes tax filings and returns once a year, and it managed to marshal its forces to disperse more than 460 million payments, totaling approximately $800 billion across three separate tranches.
(10:13)
And now the IRS is preparing to make monthly payments over the expanded child tax credit to families of more than 88% of American children. Our team has done valiant work implementing these programs with the resources at our disposal, but we cannot continue to be good stewards of this recovery and tackle the new bodies of work the Congress assigns to us in the years beyond with a budget that was designed for 2010.
(10:43)
Tomorrow, our administration will release its formal budget, and there is several critical areas where funding is needed. For instance, the financial crimes and enforcement network, FinCEN, is tasked with building a massive database that collects and secures beneficial ownership information. The Congress has not yet provided any funding to do it. Then there are the community development financial institutions. Congress has dramatically expanded funding for CDFIs with supplemental appropriations, and rightly so. These institutions are very effective at injecting capital into areas the financial sector hasn’t traditionally served well, but it’s challenging to the CVFI fund to distribute greater resources and scale these programs without additional administrative funding.
(11:43)
The IRS is in need of additional resources too. Over the next 10 years, the American people could see roughly $7 trillion fall through the cracks of our tax system. Why? Because many of the country’s wealthiest tax payers do not pay their full tax bill. And the IRS is not nearly staffed up enough to ensure compliance. Today the IRS has fewer auditors than in any time since World War II. Our proposal would give the IRS the funding it needs. For fiscal year 2022, it includes $13.2 billion from discretionary appropriations, plus $417 million for the first year of program integrity allocation as part of the multi-year American Families Plan. The speed and strength of our recovery and our economy long-term depend on a fully funded treasury. I look forward to working with you to make that happen

Mike Quigley: (12:53)
Thank you so much. We will now begin with questions. Madam Secretary, let me begin talking about your sanctions enforcement efforts. Last month, treasury took multiple sanction actions against the Russian government and individuals in Russia, and other entities in response to a number of malign activities, including but not limited to meddling in the 2020 elections, the poisoning of Alexi Navalny, the Solar Winds cyber attack. And in the past I’ve shown, expressed concern about their overseas accounts, the Kremlin using to undermine these effectiveness. Can you talk a little bit about the challenges in enforcing the sanctions you’re asked to push forward?

Janet Yellen: (13:42)
Well, with… Thank you for that question. Let me just start with Russia and say that we’re firmly committed to using the full breadth of Treasury’s authorities to target the range of Russian malign activities, included those you mentioned. And we do believe that this poses a very significant threat to US national security. Where generally treasury believes in the warranted, strategic and judicious use of sanctions, we see them as a very powerful tool to discourage malign actors, promote accountability, and propel positive changes in behavior of foreign enemies and adversaries. And we think that they have significantly advanced US national security.
(14:42)
But I’ve asked my deputy secretary, Wally Adeyemo, to lead a review of our sanctions program and policy to make sure that we use sanctions strategically with a clearly defined goals, and implemented as part of a broader integrated strategy. He is going to be focusing on identifying conditions that make for the successful use of sanctions, and trying to understand what other complimentary actions need to be taken. He tried to develop a framework through which to evaluate potential sanction’s actions, and look at the possibility of coordinating more closely with other countries so that the sanctions that we impose are more powerful and have a larger effect.

Mike Quigley: (15:49)
Sure. And I think the coordination with our allies is essential, but can you at least, so folks watching can then help understand the kind of tactics we see, not just Russia, but others use to evade these efforts?
Janet Yellen: (16:07)
Well, certainly there are efforts at evasion of sanctions, and this is something that we try to redress to the maximum extent possible. When we’re working jointly with our allies, the odds, the difficulty of evading sanctions becomes higher. And that’s one important reason I think we need to collaborate with other countries in imposing these sanctions.
Mike Quigley: (16:41)Just make sure as you go forward that you let us know what kind of resources you need in a changing world to move forward on all those efforts.
Janet Yellen: (16:55)Thank you. I think that our budget includes funding to make sure that we are. This is an expanding a portfolio, it’s become much more important in recent years and the resources we’ve devoted to it have increased substantially.

Mike Quigley: (17:15)Very good, thank you. Mr. Womack.
Steve Womack: (17:20)
Thank you. Madam Secretary, there is no secret that I oppose the Iran nuclear deal and supported the withdrawal from it. And personally, I think it’s reckless and pretty much unconscionable for the administration to start negotiating with Iran to reinstate the nuclear agreement, particularly given the known support to Hamas in what we’ve witnessed recently in Israel. I believe we need to stand with Israel. So here’s my question on, as we carry the sanctions issue just a little bit further, what’s Treasury’s role in this particular skirmish on sanctions with Iran and Hamas, and what are you doing to ensure that money is not moving from that state actor to its proxy in an effort to attack our friends in Israel?

Janet Yellen: (18:20)
So we have a set of sanctions that have long been in place on Hamas, and it’s something that treasury is working effectively to make sure that we carry out. We try to constrain Hamas’s activities, we have worked with other countries, including countries in the Middle East to make sure that there it’s harder for Hamas to evade the sanctions we’ve put in place. So this is in a very active area of engagement. With respect to Iran, I think you know the president is looking at negotiations that might succeed in bringing Iran back to full performance of its commitments under the JCPOA, and has indicated that the United States is prepared to do the same if Iran agrees to that. So we will carefully review what sanctions relief would be appropriate if Iran takes the appropriate steps.

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