Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Quigley, and members of the subcommittee, it is good to be here with you today to discuss the President’s Budget and the priorities of the Treasury Department.
Today I would like to highlight the Administration’s priorities of protecting America’s financial system and national security and implementing the historic Tax Cuts & Jobs Act.
The President’s FY2019 budget requests increased resources for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. This will be used to economically isolate the rogue regime in North Korea and fund the new Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) in Saudi Arabia. It will also allow us to implement the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, including funding for our Russia and Iran programs, and counter illicit financial networks. We are aggressively targeting terrorist organizations, transnational crime organizations, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats. As the importance of our economic tools continues to escalate, we need additional funding to enhance Administration efforts and implement Congressional priorities.
This budget also provides for Treasury-wide cybersecurity protections. As I have previously noted before this subcommittee, protecting both Treasury and the financial system from cyber attacks is critical for our nation’s financial stability. These attacks not only have the potential to affect financial markets and the broader economy, they implicate our national security as well.
In particular, I want to highlight the Cybersecurity Enhancement Account. This initiative makes proactive and strategic investments in enterprise-wide cybersecurity capabilities. These capabilities will ensure that Treasury is better prepared to defend against cyber attacks and respond appropriately when such attacks occur.
I would also like to point to two Administration priorities for the 2018 appropriations bill. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act included hundreds of provisions that will provide tax cuts for middle-income families and make American businesses more competitive. Implementing the law will require a great deal of work in 2018 and 2019. Accordingly, the IRS will need $397 million in order to carry out this critical mandate. The Administration is also requesting $25 million above the President’s FY2018 budget for TFI to fund the TFTC and to immediately deploy additional resources to counter threats posed by North Korea.
The policies in the President’s Budget will foster economic growth, set our country on a sound fiscal path in the long term, and carry out the Administration’s commitment to protecting the national security of the United States.
Thank you very much.
####