Steven Mnuchin: We can’t shut down the economy again

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said on Thursday the U.S. cannot shutter the economy again amid small pockets of a coronavirus resurgence in some states.

“We can’t shut down the economy again,” Mr. Mnuchin said on CNBC.

“I think we’ve learned that if you shut down the economy, you’re going to create more damage and not just economic damage but there are other areas…of medical problems and everything else that get put on hold,” he said.

He said Treasury isn’t modeling the medical side of things, but that there is plenty of hospital capacity and a lot of progress has been made on coronavirus testing.

“I think now you’re going to see with the reopening - yes, you will see there’s areas - but contact tracing is getting much better, the technology is getting much better, so I think we’ll deal with this in the appropriate way,” he said.

Mr. Mnuchin said the White House is prepared to ask Congress to pass more legislation on top of the $3 trillion lawmakers have already authorized in recent months.

But he said a good chunk of that money has not yet flowed into the U.S. economy.

“There’s only about $1.6 trillion of that money actually in the economy, so over the next month you’re going to see over another trillion dollars pumped into the economy - that’s going to have a big impact,” he said.

He said he talked about that issue with Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, who said earlier Thursday that lawmakers don’t need to authorize additional spending right now.

“We’re going to get everybody back to work - that’s my number one job working with the president, and we’re going to do that,” Mr. Mnuchin said.