Following an election in which voters resoundingly registered their disapproval with President Biden’s economic record, Democrats tried on Thursday to put wealth disparity itself on trial at Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent’s confirmation hearing. The nominee, who has spent decades as a hedge fund manager, in turn laid out his visions for extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, expanding energy production, and a tariff regime that would not generate inflation. 

Mr. Bessent — who would be the first openly gay man to hold the position — was chosen by President Trump to lead the Treasury Department at the urging of Senator Graham, who has known Mr. Bessent — a native South Carolinian — for years. Trump said in a statement upon the nomination that Mr. Bessent would help “fortify our position as the World’s leading Economy, Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurialism, Destination for Capital, while always, and without question, maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World.”

Ahead of his confirmation hearing, NBC News reported that Democrats would attack Mr. Bessent for taking more than $950,000 in self-employment tax breaks between 2021 and 2023 by writing off losses at a publishing house, a legal procedure that countless people — including the president-elect — have used. 

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, made that tax break a key part of his opening statement at the confirmation but the subject never came up again during the course of the hearing.

“Like a number of Wall Street fund managers, Mr. Bessent makes use of a tricky legal maneuver to opt out of paying into Medicare. It’s a tax loophole that hurts Medicare, but benefits him to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year,” Mr. Wyden declared.

“It’s an awfully big conflict of interest if Mr. Bessent is confirmed,” the senator added. “Either he and his lawyers take the position that Treasury policy doesn’t apply to the Treasury secretary, or he blesses a loophole that lets Wall Street titans blow off their fair share of Medicare taxes.”

In a statement to NBC News in response to Mr. Wyden’s comments, the Trump campaign called his accusations “meritless” and said that Mr. Bessent had paid the taxes required of him. “Neither Senator Wyden nor his staff are able to provide any evidence that Scott violated the Internal Revenue Code,” the Trump camp said. 

Mr. Wyden’s opening statement was just the first by a Democrat trying to turn Mr. Bessent’s nomination and policy agenda into a populist punching bag. Senator Sanders asked the nominee point-blank if he believed, as President Biden argued on Wednesday night, that America was moving toward a new “oligarchy.”

“What Biden said last night is that we’re moving toward an oligarchy. I’m asking you that question,” Mr. Sanders said. “Do you think that when so few people have so much wealth, and so much economic and political power, that is an oligarchic form of society?”

“I would note that the President Biden gave a Presidential Medal of Freedom to two people who, I think, would qualify for his oligarchs,” Mr. Bessent shot back, referring to billionaires George Soros and David Rubenstein, both of whom were awarded the Medal of Freedom on January 4. 

Mr. Bessent got more time to talk about his policy agenda under questioning from Republicans on the committee. The Finance Committee chairman, Senator Crapo, asked Mr. Bessent to explain the cost of not extending Trump 2017 tax cuts. The nominee said that if the reforms are not made permanent, then American families of all income levels are looking at a $4 trillion tax hike when the reforms expire at the end of this year. 

“This is the single most important economic issue of the day. This is pass-fail. If we do not fix these cuts, if we do not renew and extend, then we will be facing an economic calamity and, as always with financial instability, that falls on the middle and working class people,” Mr. Bessent argued. “We will see a gigantic middle class tax increase. We will see the Child Tax Credit capped. We will see the deductions halved. So, it will be — what we call in economics — it has the potential for a sudden stop.”

Beyond extending his own tax reforms, Trump has called for a hodgepodge of all kinds of new eliminations and reductions, including an end to taxes on overtime, tips, and Social Security, along with a corporate rate cut to 15 percent from 21 percent, and an increase of the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction. 

Mr. Wyden, during his questioning period, pressed Mr. Bessent on Trump’s tariff proposal, which includes a 10 percent blanket tariff for all foreign goods, 25 percent tariffs on imports from both Canada and Mexico, and even higher tariffs on Communist China. Trump has kicked around numbers like a 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods.

Mr. Wyden insisted that the cost of the tariffs would be borne by those who can least afford them. “These tariffs — you can call it whatever you want in terms of trying to gussy it up — they’re gonna be paid for by our workers and small businesses,” Mr. Wyden said. Trump’s insistence during the campaign that foreign companies would pay the tariffs, he said, was “baloney.”

“The history of tariffs … does not support what you’re saying,” Mr. Bessent responded. “The currency appreciates by four percent, so the ten percent [tariff] is not passed through. Then, we have elasticity and consumer behaviors may change.”

Mr. Wyden then pressed Mr. Bessent on the Inflation Reduction Act and its clean energy investments, arguing that the Treasury secretary should be supporting America in what he described as a “clean energy arms race” with China. 

“China will build 100 new coal plants this year,” Mr. Bessent replied. “There is not a clean energy race — there is an energy race.”