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Jacob Lew

July 13, 2010 by · Comments Off on Jacob Lew 

Jacob Lew:(Washington Post) — Obama said President Jacob Lew and his budget director on Tuesday, praising the success in that role Lew during the Clinton administration – and calling on him to help replace the current budget deficit to surplus Clinton era.

In playing a key role in the State Department to replace Peter Orszag and the Office of Management and Budget, Obama helped accelerate a staff shuffle is underway. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and senior State Department officials had resisted the passage of weeks, a point Obama acknowledged in his opening remarks at the White House, saying he had “had to trade a serial number includes a project on” Clinton Lew release.

The appointment fits well with the new White House push to compare tax policies of the Bush years with those of Democratic presidents before and after. Obama, under pressure to appear more in control of the sagging economy four months before the midterm elections, distribution Lew selection as part of a larger effort to get government spending under control. Compared over 236 billion dollars in 2001 Lew left at the end of his final term as director of OMB with $ 1,300,000,000,000 deficit Obama found on taking office in 2009.

Lew asked Obama to “use their extraordinary skills and experience to reduce the deficit and put our nation on a path of fiscal responsibility.”

Lew, 54, a former aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neill, he has served as undersecretary of State for Management and Resources – a relatively new, and a power that made him several civilians in global efforts hot spots. Among other things, Lew has managed staff and money side of the wave of civilians in Afghanistan, a major boost to aid for Pakistan and the transition to civilian control in Iraq.

Widely admired as a manager and policy studies, Lew is expected to win quick Senate confirmation. He is credited with helping to launch national service program of President Clinton and in 1997, providing critical expertise and the administration reached an agreement to balance the budget.

Clinton’s secretary, in a letter to employees of the State Department on Tuesday, described the appointment of his deputy as “bittersweet.”

“While I was hoping not having to replace Jack, the President and our country needs his leadership in the OMB,” wrote Clinton. “His previous experience in the Clinton administration to help get the U.S. budget deficit surplus makes it uniquely prepared to lead at this time.”

Lew joined the OMB in 1994 and eventually was nominated to be director in 1998, serving in that capacity until the end of the Clinton Administration. Lew’s tenure at the OMB has been characterized by a significant reduction in the federal deficit, an experience that would be particularly valuable as the Obama administration faces a record deficit.

If confirmed, Lew face the challenge of embarking on a huge budget plan in February, which reduces the federal deficit to 3 percent of the size of the economy by 2015. With the current deficit at $ 1.3 trillion – over 9 percent of the economy – the fulfillment of this task will not be easy. Tax hikes and cuts in popular social programs such as Social Security and Medicare, you may have to be enacted.

However, Obama promised during the campaign to protect families earning less than $ 250,000 a year from new taxes. He has also proposed making permanent a series of tax cuts adopted during Bush administration, which expires later this year, and avoid the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions of additional taxpayers.

The government still has not shown how this can be the target of 3 percent. Under the Obama budget plan released in February, the deficit would sink no less than 3.9 percent of the economy over the next ten years and begin to increase again in 2020.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that letting the Bush tax expire, and to find a way to pay for the changes to the alternative minimum tax, the administration would closely to his goal.

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