What Good Is a Treasury Department if You Don't Have the Staff to Run It?
By relying on career people rather than political hires, Steven Mnuchin risks losing his ability to influence policy debates.
Photo Illustration by 731; Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin has one of the biggest to-do lists in Washington: Rewrite the tax code, spearhead a repeal of financial regulation, and persuade Congress to raise the debt ceiling. The agenda would be staggering in the best of circumstances, but he has a more urgent problem—a skeletal staff.
Mnuchin, a former Wall Street banker turned Hollywood financier, is the only Senate-confirmed official at Treasury. His pick for the No. 2 job, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wealth manager Jim Donovan, recently dropped out, leaving Mnuchin with no deputy secretary, no undersecretaries, and one assistant secretary. Nominees for two undersecretary positions, the third-highest-ranking jobs at Treasury, are stuck in the Senate, while another, for domestic finance, has yet to be named.