Scott Bessent risks undermining Treasury’s credibility, says Levin

When the person running America’s finances starts acting like a day trader trying to jawbone a stock price, people tend to notice. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Jonathan J. Levin is making the case that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s aggressive push to lower borrowing costs through market intervention is doing more harm than good, potentially eroding the very credibility that makes US government debt the bedrock of global finance. The core of Levin’s criticism centers on Bessent’s plan to double the Treasury’s purchases of long-dated bonds, scaling up from roughly $2B to more than $4B per operation starting in September 2026. Levin describes the strategy as a “desperate attempt” to wrestle down yields that have stubbornly climbed since Bessent took office, calling it inconsistent with the Secretary’s own pre-office rhetoric about fiscal discipline. The yield problem that won’t go away The numbers paint a fairly uncomfortable picture for Bessent. When he was nominated for the role, the 10-year Treasury yield sat around 4.20%. By late August 2026, that figure had climbed to approximately 4.73-4.75%, hovering near 19-year highs. Bessent’s response has been to lean into bond buybacks...