The Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) is a slush fund that the Secretary of the Treasury is allowed to use in any way he wants without any oversight by Congress. It has $682 billion in it, including $500 billion that was allocated to it by the CARES Act in March 2020.
Mnuchin asked Jay Powell (the Fed) to give back $455 billion. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/letter11192020.pdf . Mnuchin plans on giving that money back to the General Fund of the Treasury, where it can't be spent unless Congress authorizes it.
The independent financial journalists at WallStreetOnParade.com are outraged BOTH that the ESF exists and has so much money in it without supervision AND that Mnuchin is preventing his successor, Janet Yellen from being able to use the slush fund herself.
Make up your mind, WallStreetOnParade. Is the Exchange Stabilization a good thing or a bad thing? If it is a bad thing, isn't ending it, or drastically reducing the amount of money in it good? Or do you just hate Steve Mnuchin and are kicking him while he is walking out the door?
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