Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is reportedly interested in becoming the new secretary of the Treasury Department should Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden win next Tuesday’s election.
Warren, a former 2020 presidential candidate, has been an economic adviser to Biden since ending her White House bid.
A former law professor who specialized in bankruptcy, Warren has advocated on behalf of the middle-class on financial issues like consumer protection, economic opportunity and the social safety net since being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012.
Warren proposed and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she served as its first advisor under President Barack Obama.
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According to Politico, two Democratic officials who have spoken to Warren’s inner circle have said definitively: “She wants it.”
A progressive leader, Warren has studied the law and economics since the late 1970s.
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The choice of treasury secretary is an important one because that person would be instrumental in leading the nation’s economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic.
The current secretary of the Treasury Department, under the Donald Trump administration, is Steven Mnuchin, who has led the stalled negotiations for a second coronavirus relief package with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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Other contenders under a Biden presidency reportedly include Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, former Treasury Department official Sarah Bloom Raskin and Roger Ferguson, former Federal Reserve vice chairman and current CEO of the financial services giant TIAA, according to Politico.
The Washington Post has also named Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a former venture capitalist, as a potential choice, as well as former Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen.
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Selecting Warren would satisfy the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, voters who are still skeptical of Biden as a more moderate candidate.
Paul Thronell, a principal at the lobbying firm Mehlman Catagnetti Rosen & Thomas, told The Post that “given the depth of the problems we are facing on racial inequity, he (Biden) needs to have Black and Brown people at the principal level in places like the NEC, CEA, Treasury, SEC, OCC, the sub-cabinet level, and throughout the many regulatory agencies’ advisory councils.”
Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project said simply that the Biden-Harris campaign knows that they will be taking over broken systems of government “from the State Department to the CDC.” Should the two be elected president and vice president, he said, they will have to make choices based on “competency, not just ideology.”
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