Trump Admin Cuts off <br />Emergency Lending Programs, Overruling Fed Chair.<br />Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has asked <br />the Federal Reserve to return $455 billion in <br />unused pandemic program funds.<br />A number of pandemic <br />lending programs are <br />set to expire on Dec. 31.<br />Mnuchin made the request <br />on Thursday, saying that the <br />programs "have clearly <br />achieved their objective.".<br />Fed Chair Jerome Powell criticized the request, preferring the funds continue to be used "as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.".<br />Powell has stated that <br />it is too soon to draw the <br />pandemic programs to a close.<br />When the right time comes, and I don't think that time is yet or very soon, we will put those tools away, Jerome Powell, Fed Chair, via CNN.<br />The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also rebuked the Trump <br />administration's request, saying that it "unnecessarily <br />ties the hands of the incoming administration."
