Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday said at an investor conference that President Donald Trump’s policies will drive economic growth.
Bessent delivered remarks at the Milken Institute Global Conference and participated in a question-and-answer session with Chairman Michael Milken, in which he touted the administration’s progress in the more than three months since the inauguration.
“America deserves a golden age economy, so for the past 100 days, we’ve been preparing the soil,” Bessent said. “We have uprooted government waste and harmful regulations. We have planted the seeds of private investment, and we have fertilized the ground with fresh tax legislation.”
“Next, we harvest, and we want you to harvest with us. America is the showing point of global finance, we have the world’s reserve currency and the deepest and most liquid capital markets, and the strongest property rights,” he added.
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Bessent emphasized that the administration wants to expand economic opportunities for both workers across a wide range of industries, including in both innovative technology-focused sectors and in established industries like steelmaking.
“The real idea is to make sure that innovators can innovate and steelworkers can have the same quality of life and opportunity, and their kids could be the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, or they can stay and have the same life or better that their folks had in Pittsburgh,” Bessent said.
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The treasury secretary also discussed how the president’s push for congressional Republicans to approve a new tax package that extends expiring policies and builds off his 2017 tax law is intended to help small businesses as well as incentivizing construction of more manufacturing facilities alongside energy development.
“The president’s signature tax legislation will prevent an enormous tax hike on Main Street by making the small business deduction permanent. It will also provide tax credits and deductions for research and innovation to stimulate investment in high-tech operations,” he said.
“We will restore 100% expensing for equipment while expanding that incentive to new factory construction,” Bessent said. “The objective: to accelerate investment in American industry, and to make that investment as seamless and rewarding as possible. President Trump has embraced an ambitious deregulatory agenda. This includes expansive permitting reform, a president who doesn’t want to just ‘drill, baby, drill,’ he wants to ‘build, baby, build.'”
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