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President Obama Nominates Jack Lew For Treasury

Jan. 10, 2013 5:06pm Becket Adams

President Barack Obama Nominates White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew to Be Treasury Secretary

President Obama and Jack Lew, his nominee to be Treasury secretary. (Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama nominated White House chief of staff Jack Lew to be treasury secretary Thursday, declaring his complete trust in an aide with three decades of Washington experience in economic policy and a penchant for shunning the limelight.

“He is a low-key guy who prefers to surround himself with policy experts rather than television cameras,” Obama said.

Obama announced his nomination in the ornate White House East Room, flanked by Lew and outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The two men and their backgrounds illustrate the nation’s changing economic landscape. Geithner is a longtime banking specialist with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve who took office in 2009 at the height of the nation’s financial crisis. Lew has been a budget wonk as the government struggled with its debt and deficit challenges.

President Obama heaped praise on Geithner for addressing the Wall Street meltdown and shepherding an overhaul of financial regulations through Congress.

“When the history books are written, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest secretaries of the treasury.”

The president highlighted Lew’s past work on economic policy, from his days in the 1980s as an aide to then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill to his work on the budget with President Bill Clinton.

Obama also took time to rib Lew for his loopy signature, a distended Slinky-like scrawl that captured media attention Wednesday, joking that when he became aware of it he considered “rescinding my offer to appoint him.”

If confirmed as treasury secretary, Lew’s signature will appear on U.S. currency:

Like so (Courtesy New York magazine).

A year ago, almost to the day, the president selected Lew as his chief of staff, taking him from his job as director of the Office of Management and Budget into the White House inner circle.

In selecting Lew to replace Geithner, President Obama picked an insider steeped in budget matters.

If confirmed, Lew would assume the post in time for the administration to tangle anew with Republicans over a confluence of three looming fiscal deadlines — raising the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit, averting automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, and the expiration of a congressional resolution that has been keeping the government operating. Those three events, if unresolved, would have a far greater negative effect on the economy than the “fiscal cliff” that the White House and Congress “avoided” a week ago.

President Obama nominated Jack Lew, left, as the Treasury Secretary, replacing Timothy Geithner, right, pictured here during a press conference Sept. 19, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images file)

Lew, 57, has often been described as a “pragmatic liberal” who “understands what it takes to make a deal even as he stands by his ideological views.”

One senior Republican senator, Alabama’s Jeff Sessions, voiced opposition to Lew. But while Lew may face a tough confirmation in the Senate, he’s not likely to encounter the type of stiff opposition that is already mounting against former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican whom Obama has tapped to be his defense secretary.

“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,” said Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. “Jack Lew is not that man.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this story. Front page photo courtesy Getty Images

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Comments (24)

Tom70
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 1:37pm
I wonder has this guy paid his taxes? I imagine that he is just another rubber stamp.

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GuruMeditation
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 1:24pm
You mean OooooooO?

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JL9999
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:16pm
I don’t know if Jack Lew is a liar, a cheat or whatever. But if his only sin is that he clashes with Republican members of Congress then I could not care much less if my party of 40 years likes him. I want the system fixed and so far the republicans are no better than the liars of the Democrat party. My party has sold us out almost as often as the Democrats. Personally, I think it is about time we have an Independant American party one whe3re all you radical religious creeps can be told to drop dead and take your anti-Mormon, anti-fiscal sanity, anti-Jew, anti-everything else crapola and stuff it.

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raderby
Posted on January 11, 2013 at 9:00am
OH – a reward/payment for this liar’s “work” at OMB.

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LIBERTARIAN_CONSPIRATOR
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 11:14pm
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/09/out-tax-cheat-for-treasury-secretary-in-bailout-profiteer-for-treasury-secretary/

In the wake of the financial meltdown, President Barack Obama derided Wall Street bonuses as “obscene,” calling them examples of “fat cats who are getting awarded for their failure.”

But now, Mr. Obama has announced that he will nominate as his next Treasury secretary Jack Lew, a man who in 2009 bagged a $950,000 bonus after his bank, Citigroup, received billions in a taxpayer-funded bailout.

Mr. Lew is the former chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit—a group that bet billions against homeowners paying their mortgages.

As the Huffington Post reported in 2010, during Mr. Lew’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director confirmation, “neither the Senate’s Budget Committee nor its Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee bothered to ask a single question about Lew’s tenure at Citigroup, transcripts of the proceedings show.”

Lol! This stuff just gets weirder and weirder. But, we are the ones who are going to suffer for these morons! So, now he has an even bigger thief running the Treasury. Yeah buddy!

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- JL9999
  Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:21pm
  You seem to think the game is not rigged. Of course it is and our party is as guilty of malfeasance as the damned Democrats.
  
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ofass
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:56pm
And this is a good reason to eliminate them all, right, Abu-Adolf ?

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pahrumper
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:52pm
Look at it this way mr *****, if the loons like and the Muslim camel humper does too, dump him!

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denkat56
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:57pm
I wonder how the history books will tell Obama’s story traitor, liar, murderer, cheat, I just wonder.

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- FISH_BONE
  Posted on January 10, 2013 at 7:03pm
  No need to wonder. Who writes the history books? The MSM paints him as greatest thing ever and in like turn, the Kenyan POS will come out of the history books looking and smelling like a rose.
  
  Report this comment
- MIBUGNU2
  Posted on January 10, 2013 at 7:36pm
  “When the history books are written, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest secretaries of the treasury.”
  
  AH, HUH !!! Turbo Tax Timmy the tax cheat..Oblamers Treasury Sec.
  
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- sam1064
  Posted on January 10, 2013 at 9:22pm
  History is written by liberals so 100 years from now Obama will be seen as of our greatest and Washington will be a footnote. Look at how revered Roosevelt is yet under him the Great Depression went years longer than it should be. Lew is brilliant isnt he? His budgets have drawn 0 votes in a Democrat controlled Senate and 0 democrat votes in the house.
  
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FISH_BONE
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:57pm
We are truly on the Highway to Hell.

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DZ-015
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:54pm
Here we go Loop-de-Lew…

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Rayblue
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:53pm
What a zero.

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denkat56
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:49pm
I wonder if his math is as bad as Giethners.

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- IndyGuy
  Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:17am
  His math is whatever Obama wants it to be just like Geithner’s…He’s already lied thru his teeth to Congress stating that Obama’s spending and policies would not add to the country’s debt…
  
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go2gym
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:44pm
Obama: ““When when liberals write the history books, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest secretaries of the treasury.”

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SpankDaMonkey
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:41pm
.
Well looks like Obama had a bowel movement out on the south lawn and we got us another POS for Treasury Secretary………..

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TheePolitinator
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:39pm
,declaring his complete trust in an aide with three decades of Washington experience in economic policy and a penchant for shunning the limelight.

Wow, Hollyweird could not even make this stuff up. Yes the best at making the Rothchild’s and several other globalist families trillions.

Wake up folks

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RJJinGadsden
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:28pm
For a better view of Jack Lew’s signature, tag the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hostess-Cupcake-Whole.jpg

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TiffanyB50
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:25pm
So I take it that Jack Lew never learned how to write in cursive? Another loser appointed to the Obama administration! I guess this is a “sign” of what is coming…

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woodyee
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:18pm
“When the history [Joke] books are written, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest secretaries of the treasury.”

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woodyee
Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:12pm
THAT is the scombegs signature?!?

Again, plausible deniability…

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