Treasury, Commerce, SEC & SBA Nominees Each Worth A Billion or More; Average Worth of Proposed Economic Policy Aides is Over $500 Million; They All Will Work To Get More Tax Cuts for The Wealthy

Donald Trump has stacked his proposed economic-policy team with fellow billionaires and other super-rich people who will pursue policies that benefit them and their fellow plutocrats rather than boosting the economy or helping working families. According to a new analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), Trump’s nominees to head the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Small Business Administration are each worth at least a billion dollars; and the average wealth of 10 top economic advisers is over $500 million.

“Billionaires making economic policy for working families is a recipe for disaster,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “An economy and tax code that are already rigged to benefit the wealthy and well-connected will just be twisted more in their favor. At a time when Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing, education and other services vital to average Americans are under threat, Trump’s proposed ‘Solid Gold’ economic team will be pushing tax cuts mostly for themselves and their friends that will run up almost $5 trillion in extra debt.”

SOURCE: Americans for Tax Fairness

Following are more details about the wealthiest proposed members of Trump’s economic team:

Howard Lutnick
Nomination: Commerce Secretary
Est. Net Worth: $2 billion

Lutnick is the chairman and CEO of Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. He served as co-chair of the Trump transition operation and so played a big role in picking the rest of the administration’s proposed economic team.

Lutnick is a big backer of Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on foreign goods, which it’s estimated would cost the average American family up to $4,000 a year in higher prices. Another estimate that considers all of Trump’s proposed tax-and-tariff policies found that in 2026 only the highest-income 5%–households making over $360,000 a year–would come out ahead, with all other families losing between roughly $600 and $1,800.

The benefits of Trump’s agenda would be particularly concentrated among the highest-income 1%. Households bringing in nearly a million dollars and more would  get on average an almost $40,000 tax cut in 2026 alone.

Lutnick is a proponent of cryptocurrency and has specifically recommended the digital coin Tether, which has reportedly been under federal investigation for facilitating payments by drug dealers and terrorists.

Lutnick was accused of exploiting his position as co-chair of Trump’s transition committee to promote his private business interests, a charge he has denied.

Scott Bessent
Nomination: Treasury Secretary
Est. Net Worth: $1 billion

Bessent, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, is pushing a plan that includes cutting the annual federal budget deficit by more than half, or by about a trillion dollars, over the next four years. May sound good, but Trump and his fellow Republicans are opposed to raising taxes on billionaires like Bessent–or on the huge corporations they control through their stock holdings. So that means the proposed reduction in the deficit would mostly come from cuts to vital public services working families rely on, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other healthcare programs, housing and education. Bessent, of course, doesn’t have to worry about those programs: he has enough money to have donated $1 million to Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.

Paul Atkins
Nomination: Securities and Exchange Commission Chair
Est. Net Worth: $1 billion

Atkins became a billionaire by marrying into a wealthy family. He is a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency, the rapidly appreciating digital assets that many economic experts view as dangerously speculative.

Atkins previously served as an SEC commissioner, a role in which he pushed for looser regulation of corporations and markets. Poorly regulated economic systems can hurt working families through higher prices and more frequent crashes. Atkins is a particular critic of the SEC agency that oversees the auditing of corporate finances–lax audits have led to massive corporate failures.

Kelly Loeffler
Nomination: SBA Administrator
Est. Net Worth: $1 billion

The personal finances of Loeffler, who has been tapped to run the Small Business Administration, bear very little resemblance to that of the typical small business owner. She and her husband hold a half billion dollar stake in the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, the exclusive home of very big businesses.

In early 2020, as a United States Senator from Georgia privy to official information about the developing Covid crisis that would soon tank the stock market, Loeffler sold tens of millions of dollars of corporate shares.