Taxes and tariffs took center stage Thursday at the Senate Finance Committee’s confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s intended Treasury secretary nominee, Scott Bessent. Republicans and Democrats sparred over who would benefit most from extending more than $4 trillion in tax cuts enacted during the first Trump administration.

Scott Bessent, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Treasury Department, on Thursday said that extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year is "the single most important economic issue of the day.

Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent warned that the US faces an economic crisis that will hammer middle- and working-class people if the 2017 Republican tax cuts aren’t extended when a swath of them expire at the end of this year.