I think the last Secretary of the Treasury who had never been either a banker or a CEO/President (before Tim Geithner) was James Baker. Before Baker, you have to go back to John Connally (the guy in the car with Jackie and JFK). Feel free to look up all the bios of all the Treasury secretaries who have served this country in its entire history. I’m not an expert on this history and I don’t know a lot about most of them.
I do know, however, that it’s been pretty much a requirement that anyone serving as the Secretary of Treasury have experience either in the financial services industry or as the head of a large corporation. Geithner slid by that requirement because being head of the New York Federal Reserve was close enough.
Jack Lew had a year and a half stint at CitiGroup, which hardly qualifies him as an experienced banker, but does check the box.
I’m not wedded to the idea that the Treasury Department should be run by CEOs and bankers instead of economists or progressive reformers, but I do find it tiresome when people act like Jack Lew is just more of the same. He’s actually quite a bit different. Geithner was a complete creature of Wall Street. Baker and Connelly really owed their positions to being the patrons of more powerful politicians: Connelly (LBJ) and Baker (Poppy Bush). Jack Lew isn’t anyone’s wingman. He barely got his feet wet on Wall Street. He’s a wonk. You might call him an expert.
It’s not like I am excited about Jack Lew for Treasury. But he doesn’t fit the mold.
I don’t know enough about Lew to have an opinion, but is this the best that progressives can say about him: that his CV doesn’t fit the mold? Has he done anything good?
I think he has. First, he got his start on Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 campaign. Then he was advised by Paul Wellstone in college. He worked as an aide to Rep. Moakley (D-MA) before landing a job with Speaker O’Neill. So, his liberal pedigree was pretty unassailable up to the time he began his work in the Clinton Administration.
He worked up the Americorps legislation and worked on the Clinton health care bill. After that, he was mainly a numbers cruncher.
In the debt ceiling negotiations, he exacerbated Boehner to the point that Boehner specifically asked that he not have to deal with him anymore. And that was because he was too smart for Boehner and wouldn’t make concessions on entitlements.
So, I don’t see a whole lot to complain about.
Apparently the specific entitlement he absolutely refused to touch in 2011 was Medicaid – i.e. healthcare for the poor and working class. Not normally high on the plutocratic class’s list of priorities.
I meant exasperated.
Maybe it can be said that an exasperated conservative becomes as exacerbated one.
as –> an
I’m encouraged, jealous, agnostic, appreciative, and impressed, in that order. Thanks for the info.
I think Lew is an excellent choice.
is this the best that progressives can say about him
No, it’s not. This is called “pushback.” There have been a lot of b.s. charges thrown around, and BooMan is answering them.
I admire President Obama. I would feel honored to be half the man he is in terms of character, intelligence, courage and charm. In my opinion, he is by far the best president of my lifetime (I’ll be 50 in April) and one of the greats. So I’m more than happy to let him choose his advisers. I’m not going to second guess him because they’re allegedly not racially diverse enough (seriously, Rangel?) or not progressive enough or not outside the box enough or not whatever else enough. We’re so quick to undercut our leaders. I’m not into that. I’m an Obama man, loyal to the core. Doesn’t mean I agree with everything he’s done, but who am I to critique him?
How is Geithner “a creature of Wall Street”? He never worked on Wall Street in any capacity. He’s been a bureaucrat his entire professional life.
Type 33 Liberty Street into Google maps.
Because he was the boss at the NY Fed.
The Fed is a creature of Wall Street. Half the governors are chosen by megabanks. The other half are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, but they are normally chosen from banking or from economics. Inevitably some of the government nominees are at least highly sympathetic to the megabanks, so the megabanks run the show.
If it wasn’t late and I wasn’t tired, I would register dismissiveshrugsandskepticalfrowns.com right now.
I think that’s true, if you believe that telling the truth = unrelenting hostility toward the opposition.
I loved the Obama we saw at the press conference yesterday. I have to admit, though, that I listened to it on my computer as I made dinner, so I didn’t get to see any dismissive shrugs or skeptical frowns.
What I heard was mostly Patient Teacher with the slow Kids, answering the same questions over and over, with a bit of impatience with chuck “this really isn’t that hard” todd thrown in.
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I didn’t realize he was an Orthodox Jew like Lieberman. Orthodox Jews won’t even use the telephone on Saturday. I consider that a major problem in a cabinet member. Not being a Jew, I hasten to add. Reform or Conservative would be OK, they can work on Saturdays in an emergency.
He can work, too, in an emergency.
Jack Lew is “more of the same,” as long as you are sufficiently vague in your language.
He’s, like, one of those rich, big-money types.
Have you read some of the stuff on Lew?
The more I read about him, the more I like him.
I have far more confidence in this pick than Geitner, whom I have never liked.
Deaniac did a piece on Lew that’s worth a read:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/01/selective-memory-for-liberal-elite.html
Lew seems like the kind of guy who will not be high-profile. Given the recent habit of elevating cabinet members to a higher profile than the President on the policies within their purview, that’s a good thing. It re-establishes the the perception (the truth) that the President directs the cabinet, not the reverse. That it’s Obama’s policies, not Geithner’s policies that get implemented. I suspect that with Lew at Treasury, you’ll barely be a aware that there is a Secretary of the Treasury–sorta like the Secretary of Labor has been for the past four years.
Treasury has one primary function–financing the operations of the government of the United States of America. Traditionally, the Secretary of Treasury has functioned as the President’s ambassador to Wall Street and that was Geithner’s primary role in establishing President Obama’s legitimacy to make economic policy. (When the history of the Obama administration is written, a lot of the efforts in most of the first term will be seen as countering the delegitimization campaign by the GOP–from the Afghan surge to the appointment of Geithner. Having legitimacy is only way to make policy stick. That job, with re-election, is accomplished.)
Treasury is not the maker of economic policy although in a crisis in the financial markets its voice and understanding carry some weight. That is a point that progressives miss in their fixation on putting the right people in symbolic positions. Krugman or Stiglitz at Treasury would be only marginally different from Geithner or Lew.
Appointments in DC are not usually made on ideology as much as on understanding of the details of a government function–unless the appointee is expected to sabotage the function like Howard Phillips at the Office of Economic Opportunity. Lew understands how Congress works. He understands the ins and outs of the healthcare issue–regardless of where his proposals might come out. He understands the details of the federal budget. According to reports, he’s a spreadsheet sort of guy. And he will be in charge of strategy for bringing down the national debt as the economy is stimulated. That means lowering interest payments, which are not being reinvested in the economy, to allow for government programmatic spending that goes directly into the economy–without deviating from the path of deficit reduction. That is changing, the vicious cycle in which rising debt and interest payments take up more money to a virtuous cycle in which each round of deficit reduction allows more stimulation and rebuilding of the economy.
It’s the other department Secretaries (especially the Secretary of Defense) who will make that possible through proving that “more expensive” does not mean “better” or “stronger”.
If not for the Stoller/Hamsher/Sirota wing of the blogosphere, I don’t know that I’d even know that Tim Geithner is in the cabinet or that Rahm Emanuel was ever chief of staff.
I exaggerate, but barely.
Geithner obviously had a high profile and had testify a lot before Congress, but he really didn’t go out of his way to make more news than Hilda Solis.
Jack Lew has been chief of staff for how long? And you’ve heard the left bitch about him how often?
It’s not like he’s that different from Emanuel and Daley. But if no one hates him, he doesn’t become a whipping boy.
Clinton, Geithner, and Holder have been high-profile (and so was Rahm Emmanuel). Denizens of Sunday talk shows. Lightning rods for policy–all three of them.
Gates was high-profile and sucked off some of the potential controversy without being a lightning rod.
SIbelius, Vilsack, Solis, Salazar, Napolitano, not so much. And who knows who the Secreatry of HUD is–even in the middle of a continuing housing crisis.
Yes, you exaggerate. In this case, a lot. I get that the blogosphere is a competition for attention, but some folks personalize differences of opinion just a bit much. Stoller, Sirota, and Hamsher diverge to too many things to be called a wing.
they are united on enough to be a solid wing. They are anti-Establishment to the point that they should not be considered Democrats at all, and they have never cared about the party, the president, or the fight with the GOP. They are on the outside throwing bombs at everyone.
Who beside Stoller is considered a Democrat?
I had forgotten how unhinged riverdaughter is.
Some folks are progressives first and then look for a political vehicle to advance their agenda. A decade ago a lot of formerly independent progressives thought the Democratic Party was the only salvation for the country; today, there’s more diversity of opinion.
I suppose that 2009 was a point of divergence of progressive opinion for a variety of reasons. And the verb that goes with the article is “was”. Link to more recent stuff to prove your point.
I have found myself googling Jack Lew, more than once, to make sure I am not wrong in thinking he really is the president’s chief of staff, since we almost never hear anything about him.
I’ll take a workhorse like Jack Lew over a show horse, every time. You can’t bullshit someone who really knows their stuff, which is surely why the republicans hate him.
Geithner may be great but I don’t know enough about finance or the treasury to know for sure whether he’s a straight shooter or not. But as someone who is generally pretty intuitive about people, I can say that I always get the feeling that I am being sold a nicely packaged bill of goods when Geithner is talking.
Trust and confidence are what matter to me. Trust in the honesty and integrity of the person, and confidence that they know what the hell they are doing and that they have the best interests of all of us in mind.
Jack Lew? I have both.
Tim Geithner? I have neither.
I think you’re overstating the Cabinet Secretaries power with the public. I’ve never heard anyone say it was Secty. Clinton’s policy to do this or that, it’s always the President’s policy.
We’ve had high profile Cabinet members going all the way back to Washington. It’s never been a problem before, and it doesn’t appear to be a problem now.
Well, yes. Alexander Hamilton was the original high-profile cabinet member.
Not only Hamilton but what about Jefferson and Franklin?
I just don’t think high profile people in these roles is a problem.