Senate Confirms Scott Bessent To Lead Treasury Department With Bipartisan Support

The Senate voted to confirm investor and billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to serve as President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary in a bipartisan fashion Monday evening.

Senators approved Bessent’s nomination 67 to 29 with more than 10 Democratic lawmakers joining their Republican colleagues to vote “yes” on Bessent. Four senators did not vote.

Bessent, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 16., pledged to assist the president in unleashing a “new economic golden age” in the United States.

“Today, I believe that President Trump has a generational opportunity to unleash a new economic golden age that will create more jobs, wealth and prosperity for all Americans,” Bessent said during the hearing. “As President Trump has said, we will unleash the American economy by implementing pro-growth regulatory policies, reducing taxes and unleashing American energy production.”

Bessent also said that he will work with Congress to extend the 2017 tax cuts that Trump signed into law during his first term, which the Treasury secretary, during the hearing, called “the single most important economic issue of the day.” The Trump tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2025, absent Congress passing legislation to extend them.

“As we begin 2025, Americans are barreling towards an economic crisis at year’s end,” Bessent told senators during the hearing. “If Congress fails to act, Americans will face the largest tax increase in history, a crushing $4 trillion tax hike.”