Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveils punchy economic growth targets

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US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has unveiled a highly ambitious aim of securing a US tax-code overhaul by August and delivering punchy economic growth not seen in more than 10 years.

In his first interview since being confirmed as Treasury Secretary to President Donald Trump earlier this month, Mr Mnuchin told the Wall Street Journal that lacklustre economic growth since the financial crisis had been the result of policies introduced by the Obama administration that could be reversed.

He said that under Mr Trump, the government aims to sustain growth of 3 per cent or higher annually.

"We think it's critical that we get back to more normalised economic growth. More normalised economic growth is 3 per cent or higher," Mr Mnuchin told the paper. The economy has only grown at about 2 per cent annually on average over the past decade and the US Federal Reserve forecasts a long-run annual growth rate of just 1.8 per cent.

Mr Mnuchin also said that the administration’s aim is to pass major tax legislation before Congress leaves for its August recess. He admitted, however, that "that's an ambitious timeline. It could slip to later in the year."

Mr Mnuchin, who was sworn in on 13 February, spent more than a decade and a half at Wall Street bellweather Goldman Sachs, following in the footsteps of his father who reportedly spent around three decades working for the bank.

During his time there, he worked in the mortgage department, dealing with products such as collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps, which arguably played a major part in the 2008 financial crisis.

According to Business Insider, Mr Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs in 2012 to start a hedge fund with his former roommate from Yale, before later jointly creating a hedge fund with billionaire financier George Soros.