Nominating Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary Guarantees nothing done to deficit.

If Lew gets nominated then its all over for any kind of serious talks on deficit reduction, this is the guy who looked into the camera with a straight face in 2010 and said that Obamas plans would lead to a balanced budget in 10 years.



On Wednesday, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said he plans to vigorously oppose President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew.
"Jack Lew must never be Secretary of Treasury,” said Mr. Sessions in a statement. "His testimony before the Senate Budget Committee less than two years ago was so outrageous and false that it alone disqualifies.”

On Feb. 13, 2011, Mr. Lew appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley and said of Mr. Obama's proposed budget:

During Senate testimony, Mr. Sessions blasted Mr. Lew’s false statement and said he was “flatly in error”:

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Lew, who is a former director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has at times displayed a striking level of ignorance over how the budgetary process operates.

During the Crowley interview, Mr. Lew said that the reason Mr. Obama has failed to pass a budget in the Senate is because such bills can be filibustered. But as anyone familiar with the process knows, budgets are considered “privileged,” meaning they do not require a filibuster-proof majority 60 votes and can instead be passed with a simple majority.

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One would think the former head of OMB—the nation’s top budget post—would know how the budget process works. But apparently Mr. Lew does not.

Now, Mr. Lew has been nominated to become Treasury Secretary of the United States in the worst economy since the Great Depression. That, says Mr. Sessions, cannot happen:

 

"The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a graph:

<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/01/10/opinion/011012krugman1/011012krugman1-blog480.jpg">

"The vertical axis measures the projected ratio of federal debt to GDP. The blue line at the top represents the projected path of that ratio as of early 2011 — that is, before recent agreements on spending cuts and tax increases. This projection showed a rising path for debt as far as the eye could see.

"And just about all budget discussion in Washington and the news media is laid out as if that were still the case. But a lot has happened since then. The orange line shows the effects of those spending cuts and tax hikes: As long as the economy recovers, which is an assumption built into all these projections, the debt ratio will more or less stabilize soon.

"CBPP goes on to advocate another $1.4 trillion in revenue and/or spending cuts, which would bring the debt ratio at the end of the decade back down to around its current level. But the larger message here is surely that for the next decade, the debt outlook actually doesn’t look all that bad.

"True, there are projected problems further down the road, mainly because of the continuing effects of an aging population. But it still comes as something of a shock to realize that at this point reasonable projections do not, repeat do not, show anything resembling the runaway deficit crisis that is a staple of almost everything you hear, including supposedly objective news reporting.

"So you heard it here first: while you weren’t looking, and the deficit scolds were doing their scolding, the deficit problem (such as it was) was being mostly solved. Can we now start talking about unemployment?"

 

Every one of Obama's 3 recent secretary nominations are 'in your face' type of nominations. I hope none of them get confirmed. And, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

 

What a joke, this is probably relying on 4%+ growth rates, when we havent even been able to beat 3%, what does krugman propose is coming that is going to provide a big boost to the economy?

Obamacare?

Higher Taxes?

We need to get the deficit below 3% of GDP just to stabilise the debt. If interest rates go to 5% at the end of Obamas term, that alone will end up costing us a Trillion dollars a year, and you really think we are going to get to stable levels just by cutting 1.4 trillion more?

 

Guess you didn't read the article, no surprise.

One thing I've noticed about Canadians is how risk averse and fatalistic they are. They simply do not have the "can do" American attitude. They're afraid to try, as they "might fall down".

 

Did you see that screwballs signature? The guy is a friggin putz.

 

That sig is going to be on our money

 

He just recently lost his job signing cupcakes at Hostess.

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I'm afraid Lew will likely be confirmed.

Obama seems to enjoy antagonizing half the country. I believe he derives pleasure from it.