Trump Fumbles Key Details of His Own Trade Deals

“Now, with these accounts, they can be part of the system. What if they had put that money in the S&P? Or in Bitcoin? Or in anything? So, we’re making people part of the system, we’re increasing financial literacy,” Bessent said. “I think that at Treasury, we are going to push, with these accounts, that if you have the account we want you to learn about it and understand it.

“In a way, it is a backdoor for privatizing Social Security,” he continued. “Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out to the extent that if, all of a sudden, these accounts grow and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, then that’s a game changer, too.”

Congressional Republicans pushed through Trump’s tax plan earlier this month without any Democratic support. The law is not expected to save the government any money, as Trump had initially promised. Instead, Trump’s key legislative victory—which will slice taxes on the ultrawealthy and corporations while gutting social programs such as Medicaid—is expected to add upward of $6 trillion to the debt, according to a projection from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.