Former White House Chief of Staff and Budget Director Jack Lew faces some pretty tough hearings tomorrow as he tries to convince senators to confirm him as Secretary of Treasury. This should be interesting, but not for the reasons most people suspect.
I have defended, sort of, Jack Lew in the past. See my 1/10/13 post on the now defunct Rant Political JEFF SESSIONS’ LULU ABOUT JACK LEW, which I have reproduced below. In that post, I wrote:
There are better reasons for opposing Mr. Lew than his supposed “lie” to the American people. He is, as some people have argued, a “hyper-partisan.” He did work at Citicorp from 2006 until 2009 in nominally big but actually ancillary positions, selling his influence while waiting for the next spot at the public trough to open, and thus could be accused of being complicit in some of the shenanigans that nearly brought our financial system to its knees.
Republican senators will press Mr. Lew on his brief foray into the private sector at Citicorp. Note the years at which Mr. Lew worked at Citi; these were the years during which Citi, and, to be fair, most of its competitors, were engaging in the kind of reckless behavior that, as I said above, “nearly brought our financial system to its knees.” It seems that Mr. Lew is faced with a choice of admitting some culpability in the financial skullduggery that led to so much trouble for the economy and so much risk for the taxpayers or to saying that he had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Lew’s admitting to some blame for Citi’s near downfall would seem to disqualify him for the Treasury job. On the other hand, saying he had nothing to do with Citi’s problems would be to admit that his job at Citi involved nothing more than selling the influence he had garnered through his many years inhaling at the public trough.
The latter seems to be the safest course for Mr. Lew; selling influence is a time honored tradition among the governing class. Pols bide away their time between government jobs cashing in big time on their years of trough slopping at relatively small salaries while at the same time being able to claim experience in the “private sector.” This is especially popular among Republicans, who, unlike most Democrats, consider time in the private sector something worthy and honorable. But lately the Democrats have caught on to this lucrative practice; look at Jack Lew, Rahm Emanuel, and any number of other big time Dems who took time off from sucking on the public mammary gland to beef up the old bank account while doing nothing beyond making a few phone calls and waiting for the next big time office to open up.
So while the public might be appalled at the notion that Jack Lew did nothing at Citicorp but sell access to their dollars, who cares about the public? It’s the senators that vote on his confirmation that count, and they can hardly criticize a practice they have either engaged in or plan to engage in when the opportunity arises. So they will happily go along with some kind of “wink, wink, say no more” dodge like “I was in charge of cost consolidation but saw first hand how dangerous it is for banks to take excessive risks.”
Jack Lew is as good as in at Treasury. And when that gig is over, who knows how much he’ll be able to make at some other major financial institution.
Ain’t public service grand?
PROMISED PRIOR POST:
JEFF SESSIONS’ LULU ABOUT JACK LEW
Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala), appearing on CNBC this (Thursday, 1/10/13 ) morning, declared that Jack Lew must “never” become Treasury Secretary. Why is Mr. Sessions so outraged at the idea of policy wonk, numbers guy, lifelong bureaucrat, and all but harmless Jack Lew getting the job for which President Obama nominated him?
Ostensibly, Mr. Sessions is all hot and bothered regarding a statement that Mr. Lew, as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) made in 2011 that accompanied the budget he was presenting to Congress on behalf of the Obama Administration. In a very unfortunate choice of words, Mr. Lew said that the then current budget, and the fiscal path on which it would put the nation, would not add to the debt load of the federal government. This was, of course, not true; we will be experiencing budget deficits, and thus adding to the national debt, for at least the next ten years. Incidentally, even under the plan that a President Romney would have proposed, government debt would be increasing for at least the next ten, and probably the next twenty, years. What Mr. Lew meant to say was that the budget plan would not be increasing the deficit, that, indeed, the deficit would be falling, for the next ten years. And he was correct in his thinking, if not in his speech; the deficit has fallen since 2011 and, barring any unanticipated eventualities, should continue to fall for the next ten years, as it would have under a Romney Administration.
(For those more financially inclined among you, the deficit is an income statement concept while the debt is a balance sheet concept. The debt will go up as long as deficits exist. But as long as deficits are falling, the debt will grow at a slower rate.)
Mr. Lew’s 2011 declaration that the Obama Administration’s budgets would not add to the debt was a careless choice of words, but everyone knew what Mr. Lew meant. Senator Sessions, however, is ranting and raving that Mr. Lew lied, and blatantly so, to the American people, and thus is unqualified to be Treasury Secretary. Mr. Sessions, in his CNBC interview, also cited Bob Woodward’s book in which White House staffers charge Mr. Lew with being “obnoxious and unsupportive.” A Republican citing a Woodward book as justification for any position? Whoda thunk it? But I digress.
Mr. Session’s stated reasons for opposing Mr. Lew are ridiculous. Mr. Lew was guilty of a poor choice of words. Had Mr. Lew gone to a Big 10 school, rather than Harvard, he might have been more circumspect, and exact, in his choice of words, but, again, I digress. But Mr. Sessions accuses Mr. Lew of blatantly lying to the American people, a whopper of an overstatement. But even if Mr. Lew were blatantly lying, since when has such duplicity, or the obnoxiousness or unsupportiveness, resulted in someone being forever disqualified for a big Washington Washington
There are better reasons for opposing Mr. Lew than his supposed “lie” to the American people. He is, as some people have argued, a “hyper-partisan.” He did work at Citicorp from 2006 until 2009 in nominally big but actually ancillary positions, selling his influence while waiting for the next spot at the public trough to open, and thus could be accused of being complicit in some of the shenanigans that nearly brought our financial system to its knees. But even these arguments have an air of bogusness, at least in the sense that they are not at all unique to Mr. Lew. Many of the governing class in Washington
Jack Lew would not be my preference for Treasury Secretary; neither would Timmy Geithner. But my preference doesn’t matter; the President’s does. Despite Mr. Lew’s so-so qualifications to be Treasury Secretary, neither greater nor worse than most nominees for big Cabinet positions, the President has chosen to nominate Jack Lew for this very important post. And that is what bothers the likes of Jeff Sessions.
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