And the sabotage doesn’t stop with using phony deficit concerns to block necessary spending; it also involves deliberately increasing the risk of financial crisis. Yet last month Steven Mnuchin, the blessedly departing Treasury secretary, gratuitously clawed back hundreds of billions of dollars in budget backing for Fed emergency lending programs, making those funds unavailable to his successor. And talks over economic relief almost fell apart over a last-minute demand by Senator Pat Toomey, backed by the Republican leadership, that the legislation bar the Fed from restarting some of these programs or anything like them. 