Test. Test. Test. Thank you. Senator, if i could just interject, you mean, youll help us modernize the irs . It would be one of my great priorities. That would be a wonderful thing. I hope thats at least a bipartisan issue that we can all agree on. Since the chairman used part of my time, id like to get this question here. H in 2012, i used the International Tax reform act to help fix the tax code and promote u. S. Economic and job growth and that bill would help to right the ship and make more certain so that u. S. Companies are not at a competitive disadvantage with foreign companies. It would give American Companies ens incentives to create jobs in the United States so they can win globally. I would encourage u. S. Companies to develop and keep rights to their ideas and invenges in the United States rather than shift them over offshore. Do you agree it places u. S. Companies at a competitive disadvantage with foreign counterar counterparts and work with me on International Tax reform . I couldnt agree with you more. The fact that we have kaincompa like apples with hundreds of millions of dollars offshore. Theyre penalized to bring back money, one of the things well all agree on and ive talked to the president elect. He believes we can bring trillions of dollars back on shore so that that money is invested in american businesses and creating jobs and i absolutely look forward to working with you in your office on tax reform bringing down Business Rates for big businesses and Small Businesses and make America Business the most competitive in the world so that were not shipping jobs overseas and money overseas. Thank you, i have questions about the debt. But it gets into the number minut minutia, so ill submit that. Thank you. Thank you, senator carper . Senator from delaware and a lot of my time as governor and even now, i think a lot about how to create a nurturing environment for job creation and conservation. I want to talk about that in a moment but before i do, appropriate tax havens thats been mentioned. You mentioned irs. I just want to make clear. In the past year several times, john has sat where you sit and its a position hes been selected to serve. Its a 5 year term and maybe another year to run on it. And he is in his 70s and not because something but he was asked to do this toward his country and finest Public Servants i know and an attempt to impeach the house of representatives which i thought was lunacy and he said many times as has General Accountability Office and you said here today, we give the irs less money hay need. They don they need. Every dollar we invest, at least 4 back and some estimates as much as 10. I think you got it. But the message is really for us, were interested in raising revenues without raising taxes. Thats a good place to start. Your take on cfpd . Thats a cliktomplicated iss but the Biggest Issue i have with the cpbv is i dont think they should be funded out of profits from the Federal Reserve but the appropriation process. Thats good. Thank you very much. When i think of the nurturing environment for job creation, and job reservation, a lot of components to it. Among them, funding research, actually making sure were doing a good job protecting intellectual property and sensible tax code, common sense regulation. Health care and finding ways to get better results maybe for less money and people who suggested one of the components can actually be a substantial investment in infrastructure. Ive suggested for a number of years we use an approach weve taken for years and that is the people and businesses that use Transportation System would actually pay for them. Weve done that for half saefa l century that i think makes sense. And sort of figure out how many miles or vehicles traveling, excessive fee. Different approaches to that but theres some interest in the administration, Incoming Administration in Infrastructure Investment and i think theres another time to talk about that. One of the ways to build is to export. The tpp proposed to take overseas and gather access to the markets and renegotiated nafta. Seemed like a pretty good deal and i understand interested in renegotiating nafta. We tried doing that with tpp but your thoughts on transpacific trade partnership. Thank you. Youve raised a bunch of very important issues. Go to the one issue, if you would, please. Its not a trick question. I wrote down five i wanted to comment on. Just on trade agreements. On the trade agreements, you should note the president elect is very much interested in free and fair trade. As you mentioned on, its not lichlti limiting imports but growing exports. But also on intellectual property, one of the biggest problems is our American Intellectual property is not being kept and is being taken in foreign countries. Youve mentioned nafta, the president elect is very much interested in renegotiating nafta so that we can keep more jobs here. As you know, hes picked up the phone and called many ceos. I cant remember the last tile a president elect did that and worked for the American Workers and i look forward to working with you in your office. Youve raised very, very important issues. Okay. And infrastructure, again, at the appropriate time, im happy to comment on infrastructure. Thats very good to the president elect. Thank you. One last quick one. Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Not only can it go gdp by Infrastructure Investments and some of the other things i mentioned but also, comprehensive Immigration Reform. We were strongly urged by the committee for years to do it. Your take on that . I think immigration and Immigration Reform is very important to the president elect. I think he looks forward to working with the house and senate on very important issue there. If you dont share his views on comprehensive Immigration Reform, i ask that you mentor him a bit. Thank you. Senator cardin. Thank you, first of all, for being willing to serve your country and i want to follow up quickly on senator carpers point on the irs. You do have allies on both sides of the isaisle that will help y. Good professional people that work there under very difficult circumstances. Theres not enough people there, so i hope youll be effective with president elect trump because i understand hes calling on a freeze. Im not sure how that coincides with your desire to make sure you have adequate personnel at irs, but i assume youll have an opportunity to talk to the president and hopefully get the number of people you need because they cant do it with their current workforce. I can assure you that the president elect understands the concept of where we add people and we make money and hell get that completely. Thats a very quick conversation with donald trump. I want to follow up on senator wiedens point. I wear another role this this senate. Im the ranking democrat on the Senate Foreign relations committee. I want to deal with the sanctions for one moment. I heard you in regards to enforcing sanctions especially those aimed at dealing with those who sponsor terrorism and sanctions against countries that are violating our International Norms on democratic principles. Russia is the top one of that list and your views on the current sanctions and strengthening sanctions we have Bipartisan Legislation to strengthen the sanctions, particularly with russias attack against americas democratic election institutions. But i want to make sure i understand, you are committed to enforcing the sanctions against russia. 100 so and i think the president elect has made it very clear that he only would change those sanctions if he got, quote, a better deal and we got something in return whether it was on nuclear arms or other areas, but in response to the question asked about using irs to make sure its not used for partisan reasons, you will enforce these sanctions without regard to a persons Party Affiliation or office . Of course. I think terrorism and supporting terrorism and supporting illegal activities is the most important issue and i hope thats not a bipartisan, i hope that is a bipartisan issue and where there are sanctions i assure you, i will use them to the maximum amount allowable by law. I appreciate that answer. Senator warren and i will send you a letter if youre confirmed to investigate the allegations that mr. Skaramuchi who was recently named as Senior Advisor to the president may have violated the sanctions against russia in his dealings and i expect you would investigate this issue to see whether theres a file. Of course, anything you send to me, ill make sure you have your respect that i would do that 100 . I thank you for that. I want to follow up with the second point of senator wyden which has me concerned that you pointed out you would treat in your International Roles an American Company thats dealing in the foreign markets equally even if its a trump enterprise entity. Youre taking note to defend the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the United States, theres the e emolliee moll emoluments clause. So how do you go about knowing theres no special breaks being given to a trump enterprise if you dont have full access to that type of information . Well, senator, let me first say, and i think we all acknowledge this whichever side were on that were in a unique situation that we have a president who has the vast amount of money. We know that but hes not dealing with every other president has done. Set up a blind trust or divest which youre doing if youre confirmed, divesting. Thats whats required. Hes not doing that. So my question to you, how do you, if confirmed, deal with compliance to the constitution to make sure that a trump enterprise is not getting special treatment which would violate our constitution . Let me first say and i think this is an important issue for the american public, so i can understand why youre asking it but i know the president elect is absolutely following the law and is committed to following the law and has set out a series of, although its not a blind trust, he has removed himself from his business, put his sons this charge of his business. Excuse me, one second. Hes going to hire an ethics officer and i can assure you in my job of treasury secretary, whatever responsibilities i have to monitor these issues which are very important, i can assure you that i will do. What you didnt answer, how do you determine to make sure there isnt a break given to a trump enterprise which would violate our constitution . I understand comply with the law but constitution is the supreme law of the land. As you know, ive employed lots of lawyers but im not a lawyer but the good news is we have a big group of lawyers in the Treasury Department and a big ethics group and i can assure you well make sure that we absolutely follow the law and the constitution and i have every reason to believe that the president elect absolutely wants to adhere to it and will do so. Senator brown. Thank you for the conversation in my office. Thank you for meeting with me. China and banking issues. Lets start with this. Let me clear up. Banks highly incentived. Billions of dollars in fines and remediati remediation, so put that aside. I want to talk about your situation. I understand your defensiveness both in individual meetings, mine and others and in this committee about what happened at one west, but let me lay this out. In 2006, Businessman Donald Trump responded to a question about the possibility of a real estate crash by saying, i hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy, unquote. You didnt just buy properties but bought the bank and bought the ability to help families stay in their homes. Thats not what you did so my questions are these. Youve been saying that one west is a success, look at the record. I really want yes or no answers because i have questions and what i will say is factual in my view and like you to confirm with yes or no. Is it true that Community Groups say one west, specifically the california reinvestment coalition, is it true communities say one west foreclosed on 60,000 families nationwide and denied threefourths of mortgage modification applications . I am not aware of that. They did. If you know they did . I dont have it in front of me. Im going to interrupt you. Is it true one west regulations say you had deficient mortgage practices without proper procedure on at least 23 who were current on their mortgages . What i would say is we followed the same procedure that the fdic followed. We inherited the fdic. Is it true that one west independent audit firm said it violated the Service Members civil relief act by initiating foreclosures on 50 active duty military families. You have the document in front of you. I dont. Im pretty surprised you dont know these things because youve been rather defensive for good reason about what happened at one west. Is it true that the california . I do want to just comment for the record, we unfortunately did foreclose on certain people in the military. It was quite unfortunate. It was inappropriate. We responded to those people and made them whole, as i said. Every Single Person had the opportunity to have their mortgage reviewed and we corrected any errors. Our errors less than anybody else, not that im being defensive. Im proud of our i wouldnt be proud of these findings. Sit true the California AttorneyGenerals Office said one west with 96 documents and you aggressively obstructed their investigation . So first, let me comment that i sought the memo and i think its highly inappropriate somebody at the attorney Generals Office. So is there no truth in that . Again, what i would say is the primary regulator was the occ. They were the ones who had the obligation to regulate. Occ. M you couldnt remember occ and now youre citing occ. Is it true one in charge is accused of not having any process in place to help the 3,000 fha and va mortgage borrowers of wake foreclosure and the same employee in charge has accused one west of not having a process in place to help those va mortgage borrowers in submitting false claims. It seems like you want to shoot questions at me and not let me i know one answer will take time. So ill let you explain when im done. Please understand, these are complicated questions. They are complicated. Let me at least explain them, otherwise, theres no point this shooting and i dont have the ability to respond. You dont, but all of these are factual things if you want to follow up with a response later in more detail. One example, and you can answer this and take as long as you need. One example of an insider loan was the media deal, the fbi denied the request related to relatively media. Were you cochair . Yes or not . I have not and i saw you wrote the letter and i assume the fbi did a thorough review of the report and no idea why they didnt approve the foia issue. We have no reason to believe its not any issue associated with me. Fair enough. But direct that to the fbi. I accept your answer, youre not being investigated. But i find it interesting that you know about the letter i sent yesterday, the letter i sent with all the questions detailing all the issues that i just asked about with the bank west, bank west one west. One west. My father forgot the names sometimes as well. But i sent the letter and youve not taken the time to answer and it really laid out. I think the issue is the one west purchase went well for the treasury saeblg deseecretary de it was a disaster for homeowners and for taxpayers. We can talk more about taxpayer cost on this whole process and the amount of money he bought it for and sold it for. Senator, your time is up now. You take as much time to answer. Thank you very much. First of all, i did enjoy meeting you. I dont believe we had the opportunity to meet before that time and if confirmed, i look forward to spending more time with you. Thank you for saying that. Although we may not agree on everything, there were certain things we did agree on when we met and i have a lot of respect as a senator to hear your issues. I did tell you and acknowledge you acceptability me the letter and i was advised by the staff that the the appropriate thing was for me to come here and answer questions or meet with all of you independently and answer questions that you have. And if i dont satisfy that, you have the ability to submit questions afterwards, which ill respond to. When i came to your office, i told you that and said id spend as much time with you as you wanted answering those questions, that they were quite significant and i knew they were complicated. So i did tell you, although i wouldnt respond to them in writing at that point, that i did understand your questions and i wanted to address them. Senator . Thank you, and welcome. We a lot of the Current Administration describes that as the new normal. Tell me, what do you think is a reasonable expectation in terms of the growth rate in our economy is this historically, if you go back to world war ii, about 3. 2 a year. What do you think is a reasonable growth rate . Hang on, im just looking at some of my notes. I mean, the short answer is ive said publicly and i believe that we should be able to get to 3 to 4 sustained gdp. I think that thats absolutely important. I think as a country, the most important issue we have is Economic Growth. That whatever issues we have as republicans or democrats, i think we can agree that wit