Jack Lew was nominated to be secretary of the Treasury on Thursday by President Barack Obama, to succeed Timothy Geithner.
Mr. Lew, now White House chief of staff, served twice as director of the Office of Management and Budget and “has been an integral part of some of the most important budgetary, financial, and fiscal agreements, bipartisan agreements in Washington,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said at a Wednesday briefing.
Mr. Lew has been involved in major reform debates on Social Security, 1986 tax reform, and previous budget battles. “He is that rare person in Washington who has been here for years who has done some very hard things and brokered some serious bipartisan agreements, and done it in a way that has earned the admiration of almost everybody he's worked with,” Mr. Carney said.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donahue described Mr. Lew as “a skilled operative” with extensive experience dealing with federal debt, deficits and budgets. “He's there for a reason,” Mr. Donahue said at a separate news conference on Thursday.“He knows both Congress and the executive branch from the inside out,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, in an interview.
Mr. Lew also has served at the State Department and as managing director and chief operating officer of Citigroup Global Wealth Management and Citigroup Alternative Investments.
