Obama To Name Jack Lew As New Treasury Secretary
President Obama will name his Chief of Staff to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary:
President Barack Obama plans to name White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew tomorrow as his choice for Treasury secretary, replacing Timothy F. Geithner, a person familiar with the process said.
Lew, 57, who also has served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been offered the Treasury post by Obama, according to the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Geithner, 51, the only remaining member of Obama’s original economic team, has told White House officials he doesn’t’ want to serve in a second term and intends to leave the job by the end of the month.
Lew’s nomination as Treasury secretary is subject to confirmation by the Senate.
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’s name has been at the top of the list to replace Geithner for months now, so this is no surprise.
Can you fathom the reaction among the liberal chattering classes and especially the media if Bush had named Andy Card as Treasury Secretary? Yikes.
In any event, from Alexander Hamilton down all the way to Jack Lew. Terrific. Lew has zero banking experience and the only financial services experience he has was with Citigroup’s hedge fund arm, which made a killing short selling mortgage debt during the ’08-’09 financial crisis. The irony will be lost on the left.
All part and parcel of the big U.S. decline.
@Tsar Nicholas: Ya, ya, if the U.S. was a stock you’d sell it short, etc….
@Tsar Nicholas:
So Tsar, when are you going to put your money where your mouth is and bet against the US by moving to say…. Paraguay?
Loopy Lew!
@Tsar Nicholas:
“Can you fathom the reaction among the liberal chattering classes and especially the media if Bush had named Andy Card as Treasury Secretary?”
Hmm — I seem to remember one Republican Chief of Staff being appointed as Treasury Secretary, without significant opposition from liberals. Of course, that was in the day when one needed actual misconduct to oppose a potential cabinet secretary, not just “The President won’t Respect Mah Authority”, like the nutcases who make up today’s GOP use.
Want to start some rumors about Lew’s replacement as Chief of Staff? I’m thinking Petraeus.
Not in love with this choice. Lew does not seem to understand the damage that the de-regulation he was at the center of during the Clinton years did. Of course if I got a $950K bonus from Citibank I might not understand some things either. How is it possible to pick someone worse than Geitner?
Hagel…OK. I have a problem with his positions on gays and abortion…but in terms of Defense…it probably doesn’t matter much. At least he figured out Iraq was a collosal blunder…even if it was late.
Brennan…torture enthusiast. Terrible choice. Pathetic.
Kerry…I think a better choice than Rice…even though she did get a bum deal. No one is going to fill Clinton’s shoes…she did a terrific job. Wish she would stay on.
Overall…I’d give Obama a C- on Cabinet Stacking this time around.
And you believe this is an accident? Obama is dancing with the boys who paid for his ticket to the prom.
@Moosebreath:
@C. Clavin:
i’d like to see Joseph Stiglitz, but the Senate Republicans who are gearing up to oppose Lew because, hey, they can, would be on fire to oppose a “socialist” like Stiglitz, Nobel Prize nothwithstanding.
I think a straw poll of liberals would reveal quite a bit of respect for Baker, even from people who strongly disagree with his politics.
@anjin-san:
More for his subsequent work as Secretary of State than Treasury, but yes.
@Tsar Nicholas:
Have you considered trademarking that phrase?