In a process handled by civil servants, the Treasury Department carries out payments submitted by government agencies, disbursing over $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023. Former officials note that agencies are responsible for ensuring their payments are proper, not the relatively small staff at the Treasury Department, which processes over one billion payments per year.
However, Democrats have raised alarm that the Trump administration and Treasury official Mark Bessent, who was just confirmed by the Senate, are compromising the federal government’s payment system. After resisting requests for access to payment data from the Trump transition team, Bessent had reportedly suggested putting his predecessor on leave.
Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a letter to Bessent, “To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”
