Obama Said to Name Lew to Replace Geithner at Treasury

Obama Said to Name Lew to Replace Geithner at Treasury

President Barack Obama plans to name White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew tomorrow as his choice for Treasury secretary, replacing Timothy F. Geithner. Lew, who has also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been offered the Treasury Post by Obama.

By Hans Nichols
Jan 9, 2013 3:07 PM MT
Bloomberg

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 Senate confirmation. While his relations with congressional Republicans have been at times strained, he’s successfully been through the Senate process before.

His prospects for confirmation are “extraordinarily high,” and Lew might get 85 votes in the 100-member chamber, said Stan Collender, a former staff member of the Senate and House budget committees and now a partner at Qorvis Communications in Washington.

Administration Reaction

White House press secretary Jay Carney said he would “not get ahead of the president” in announcing a Cabinet appointment. He called Lew an “extremely valuable adviser to the president.”

Obama has other high-level posts to fill for his second term. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced today she submitted her resignation. The president also will be naming a commerce secretary, an Environmental Protection Agency administrator, U.S. trade representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki all plan to remain for at least part of the next term, according to a White House official, who asked for anonymity because the decisions haven’t been formally announced.

Lew would be Obama’s third Cabinet choice so far since winning re-election. On Dec. 21, he announced his choice of Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, as secretary of state, replacing Hillary Clinton. On Jan. 7 Obama said he would nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.

Debt Ceiling

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.

Congress and the administration also face negotiations over looming automatic spending cuts and extending funding for government operations.

“Your big job is to see the big picture and obviously to protect the president’s behind,” Collender said. Lew, he said, has “got the big view, he’s got the president’s trust.”

In the next 18-24 months, lawmakers will also consider overhauling the tax code and the entitlement programs that consume hundreds of billions in the budget each year.

“Social Security, Medicare and taxes fall directly into the Treasury secretary’s purview,” Collender said. “You got to look at this job as not just being secretary of the Treasury but being the chief economic policy maker. And that’s what he brings.”

Future Negotiations

Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said he’s concerned by the prospect of Lew’s nomination.

“He’s very divisive. He doesn’t play well with Republicans,” Jacobsen said. That may lower the chances of a comprehensive bipartisan resolution of the debt ceiling, the pending automatic spending cuts and an agreement to keep funding government operations.

“Lew might end up pushing for them to be dealt with one- on-one in hand-to-hand combat,” he said. “I think Obama will wind up winning those. It’s just you’ll wind up having three fights instead of one big resolution.”

Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, said in a statement that Lew is a bad choice for Treasury secretary because he made “outrageous and false” statements to Congress that Obama’s budget wouldn’t add to the national debt.

“We need a secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity not the path to decline,” he said in a statement. “Jack Lew is not that man.”

Congressional Experience

As a former aide to the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a Massachusetts Democrat, and a two-time director of the Office of Management and Budget, Lew has experience on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

He’s spent most of his career in government, with a brief detour to Wall Street, where he worked as a managing director for Citigroup from July 2006 until joining the administration as deputy secretary of state for management and resources when Obama first took office in early 2009.

Lew served as Obama’s director of the Office of Management and Budget from November 2010 to January 2012. He held the position previously from July 1998 to January 2001, in President Bill Clinton’s administration.

Among the leading candidates to replace Lew as Obama’s chief of staff are Denis McDonough, currently a deputy national security adviser, and Ron Klain, who had served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, according to people familiar with the administration’s plans.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net

To see original article CLICK HERE

More Links

Weekly Charts

Current Spot Prices

Weekly Charts
Current Spot Prices

Gold

$2155.82

Silver

$24.92

Platinum

$908.16