Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin on Wednesday set a late-summer target date for when most, “if not all,” of the U.S. economy will open back up amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re looking forward to by the time we get later in the summer having most of the economy, if not all of the economy, open,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Fox Business Network.
Mr. Mnuchin has been one of the point people for the Trump administration in negotiating coronavirus relief legislation Congress has passed in recent weeks, with the last two packages totaling roughly $2.7 trillion in spending.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed concern this week about the mounting debt.
Mr. Mnuchin pointed out that interest rates are currently low so the cost of carrying the debt isn’t terribly high right now.
“But I think we’re all sensitive to this is a war and we need to win this war and we need to spend what it takes to win the war,” he said. “On the other hand, I think we are sensitive to the economic impacts of putting on debt and that’s something that the president is reviewing with us very carefully.”
Mr. Mnuchin also said he spoke to Harvard University’s president Wednesday morning and that they received money through a Department of Education program, not a small business lending program.
“I think Harvard is thinking seriously about whether it’s appropriate for them to keep the money or give it to other institutions that need it,” he said.
President Trump on Tuesday had called on Harvard, which has an endowment of roughly $40 billion, to return the federal money it received recently.
“If they won’t do that, then we won’t do something else,” the president said. “They have to pay it back. I don’t like it. I don’t like it.”
The school said it didn’t receive money that had been earmarked for small businesses, but rather money through a higher education relief fund that had been part of a federal rescue package.
Harvard said it was using the funds for direct assistance to students facing financial hardship amid the pandemic.
