BREAKING

Jack Lew Chosen For Treasury Secretary

White House chief of staff brings a wealth of experience

Jan 9, 2013 by David Mark

Editor-in-Chief t

Image: AP.

Two turns as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. White House chief of staff. High-level Hill experience going back decades. And a lucrative spell in the private sector advising Wall Street giant Citigroup. It's no wonder President Barack Obama is choosing Jack Lew as treasury secretary.

Bloomberg, Politico and other news outlets report that Lew, currently Obama's chief of staff, is the president's choice to replace departing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The next Treasury secretary will play a leading role in working with Congress to raise the government's $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. The U.S. reached the statutory limit on Dec. 31, and the Treasury Department began using extraordinary measures to finance the government. It will exhaust that avenue as early as mid-February, the Congressional Budget Office says.

Lew helped President Bill Clinton strike the 1997 balanced budget accord as a top official at the Office of Management and Budget, the agency he has since run for both presidents. And Lew played an important role in the contentious 2011 debt ceiling debate.

Via Bloomberg and Politico.

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Jan '13

Neo_NtheMatrix

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So sad...
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Jan '13

PNWest

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Don't be sad Neo. It's a wonderful world out there! Smile, 2016 will be here in no time.
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Jan '13

dances-weebles

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@PNWest and then we can all vote for the palin/bachman ticket and give the world a good laugh.
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Jan '13

Dan_Tien

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Are you practicing to be a politician? You are quick to jump in first to say nothing new.
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Jan '13

thejimbo

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Hey Neo, a wise man once said, "If life gives you a hundred reasons to be sad, give it a thousand reasons to smile."
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Jan '13

RobertJHarsh

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@PNWest yeah in 2016 the GOP will lose the House wholesale because of all of this.
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Jan '13

PNWest

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He seems very qualified. If nothing seriously negative comes out about him he should be confirmed. This should always be the case. A president should be able to put whoever he wants in his cabinet unless there is some pretty serious problems with the nominee. Both parties turn these confirmation hearings into a big Kabuki battle which isn't in the country's best interest.
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Jan '13

OhWiseOne

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Oh really? Tell that to Robert Bork.
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Jan '13

PNWest

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@OhWiseOne Congress did the right thing in refusing to confirm Bork. He was a partisan hack and would have been a terrible justice. The only thing that would have been good if he had been confirmed is that Obama would be putting in his replacement about now.
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Jan '13

OhWiseOne

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@PNWest So he was a partisan hack and Sotomayor and Kagan were not? Sotomayor and Kagan are 2 of the most leftist judges ever to hit the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was affiliated with the racist group La Raza and Kagan booted the military off of the Harvard campus because of homosexuals.
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Jan '13

thejimbo

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How long will it be before the goobers on this site start saying that Lew was the mastermind behind Benghazi?
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Jan '13

PNWest

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@OhWiseOne Both Sotomayor and Kagan were qualified. Bork on the other hand acted like a good little Nazi in carrying out Richard Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after his two bosses Attorney General Richardson refused to do so and resigned and then Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused and also resigned. Cowardly bootlicker Bork then fired him - an act that was found to be illegal. This act showed that the man was unsuited for the bench. The Senate agreed and rightfully refused to confirm him.
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Jan '13

Everyman

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In June 2006, Lew was named chief operating officer of Citigroup's Alternative Investments unit, a proprietary trading group. The unit he oversaw invested in a hedge fund "that bet on the housing market to collapse."

We have a word for people like this where I come from....THIEF.
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Jan '13

PNWest

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Why don't you provide some evidence as to why you think Mr. Lew is a thief? Or is this just more name calling from the ignorant right?
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Jan '13

Denizen_Kate

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And where I come from, the name for those who saw the bursting of the housing/credit bubble coming is "smart." I was considering buying a townhouse here in Silicon Valley in 2004 but my brother talked me out of it, saying that the sharply rising home prices were an unsustainable phenomenon and that the fecal matter would soon make contact with the air circulation device. So I waited, then bought at a sharp discount and low fixed interest rate in early 2010. Am I a thief, too?
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Jan '13

PNWest

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@Denizen_Kate You are not a thief at all but a very shrewd home buyer. Better to be shrewd than screwed!
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Jan '13

Denizen_Kate

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@PNWest - Or as my dear departed daddy used to say, better to be a smart ass than a dumb ass.
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Jan '13

thejimbo

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"Hey Jack here's the helm have a nice crash. So long, sucker!" - Timmy G.
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Jan '13

woodtick57

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No doubt! Lew's probably thinking "Thanks buddy, what did I ever do to you?!"
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Jan '13

jessejaymes

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In reading comments day after day about subjects that none of us have any real information concerning ( D.C. is great at smoke screening the public) I'm both amused and in disbelief at how many people simply grab a party line and fire at will. This is why we have the government we do. 50% don't vote in the biggest of turnouts. 40% choose a party line and their politics amount to blaming the other side for everything. We can't straighten this country out with only 10% of the population even willing to admit that both parties are corrupt to the core.

re-elect NOBODY 2014
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Jan '13

Buzzfriendly

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You nailed that perfectly.
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Jan '13

DerivePI

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complaining about "50% don't vote in the biggest of turnouts" and then endorsing "NOBODY 2014"
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Jan '13

jessejaymes

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@DerivePI Nothing will change in Washington until such time that nobody gets re-elected for about 12 years (two senate terms). If you vote GOP then vote GOP. If you vote Dem then vote Dem. I'm not suggesting party line defections. Just oust the incumbent in the primaries. If for 12 years nobody was re-elected you'd see Congress getting very busy tossing enough crumbs to the middle/working class that things would settle down. This idea of "revolution" against our government will not work. The option we have that will work is a ballot revolution.
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Jan '13

martydotcom

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Commentator on MSNBC Just said GOP is afraid of Lew because he can add subtract and divide fractions in his head
How can you say we get no in depth penetrating analysis
Scary pert he's probably correct
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Jan '13

jessejaymes

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@martydotcom Hmm. I don't know how to react to that. I'm pretty much average in most respects but for some reason I've always had the ability to do math quickly in my head. I don't think for a moment that qualifies me to be in charge of much. But I suppose it does explain why so many right wingers hate me.
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Jan '13

DARSB

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He doesn't seem to have Goldman Sachs on his resume. That's refreshing.
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Jan '13

Denizen_Kate

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I wonder what the president had to promise this guy to get him to take this thankless job?
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Jan '13

PNWest

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Look at the signature that will be on the currency if he gets confirmed: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/...
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Jan '13

MadAmerican

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An advisor to Citigroup that went belly up and had to take a 39% government buy out? Also helped Clinton borrow to pay debt so it appeared like we were in the black, but just cooked the books when we really owed. Is this guy related to Gary Maydoff?
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Jan '13

Clarke12

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Jack Lew stole those glasses from Major Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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Politix

Is Jack Lew a good pick for Treasury secretary?

Is Jack Lew a good pick for Treasury secretary?