Jack Lew

Hill Dems Celebrate As White House Chief Of Staff Is Replaced

Brian Beutler | January 9, 2012, 3:54PM

President Barack Obama and Bill Daley

It's well known in Washington that outgoing White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley had a dysfunctional relationship with Capitol Hill -- particularly with Democrats there. And early signs suggest the new Chief of Staff -- Jack Lew, who has run the Office of Management and Budget for over a year -- will by comparison receive a warm welcome.

"Folks up here will view Lew as a big improvement," says one highly placed Democratic Hill aide. "It's hard to see Lew making the same mistakes his predecessor did. Lew understands the way this place works."

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Jack Lew

White House: Tax Hikes For The Wealthy Will Largely Pay For Jobs Bill

Susan Crabtree | September 12, 2011, 2:30PM

Jack Lew, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew on Monday outlined plans to pay for President Obama's new jobs bill largely by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans and closing tax loopholes for businesses.

Most of the new funds, Lew said, would be attained by limiting itemized deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000, a plan President Obama has tried to push since his campaign days. Taking these steps would raise roughly $400 billion over 10 years, Lew said.

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Hurricane Irene

Obama Asks Congress For $500M In Disaster Relief, Cantor Does Not Object

Susan Crabtree | September 10, 2011, 9:48AM

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

The White House late Friday afternoon sent its request to Congress for $500 million in immediate relief to help the victims of Hurricane Irene and other recent disasters and avoid running out of response funds before the end of the month.

The request was just a small portion of the total $5.1 billion the President asked for in order to fill the coffers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has become so strained for funds that it has put longer-term building projects on hold in order to ensure enough money remains for victims of Irene.

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Government Shutdown

Republicans Prepare To Reject Final White House Budget Offer

Brian Beutler | March 28, 2011, 1:24PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

It's been almost a week since House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House last sat down to hammer out a budget agreement, and the schedule's still blank. Accusations of bad faith are now flying from both sides. Republicans are poised to reject a White House offer, TPM has learned, that would cut over $30 billion in current spending because of disagreements over whether the package should include cuts to mandatory spending programs. Democrats are pushing for such cuts, which include the big entitlement programs, though the specific cuts they're proposing remain unclear. In an ironic twist, Republicans oppose those cuts and want to limit the negotiations to non-defense discretionary spending, a smaller subset of the federal budget.

Taken together, the last several days' worth of developments bode very poorly for the goal of reaching a six-month agreement on spending. The parties have until April 8 to reach agreement, and the odds of a government shutdown are higher now than they've been since this process began.

Asked about the offer the White House has floated, a top Republican aide says, "This debate has always been about discretionary spending -- not autopilot 'mandatory' spending or tax hikes."

If that position doesn't soften, it's hard to see how the two parties reach agreement.

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Social Security

OMB Director Lew: Social Security Isn't The Problem

Brian Beutler | February 22, 2011, 10:47AM

Jack Lew, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

White House budget director Jack Lew writes some pretty strong stuff, just as the administration prepares to scuffle with the GOP over Social Security.

"Social Security does not cause our deficits," he writes in a USA Today op-ed. "According to the most recent report of the independent Social Security Trustees, the trust fund is currently in surplus and growing. Even though Social Security began collecting less in taxes than it paid in benefits in 2010, the trust fund will continue to accrue interest and grow until 2025, and will have adequate resources to pay full benefits for the next 26 years."

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John Boehner

OMB Director Lew: Government Shutdown Is Off The Table

Susan Crabtree | February 14, 2011, 4:25PM

Jack Lew, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew confidently dismissed the chances of a government shutdown this year, predicting that Republicans in Congress and the White House will be able to come to a consensus on cutting spending without such serious brinkmanship.

When asked how the White House and Republicans will reconcile their divergent spending views, Lew said only that a government shutdown is off the table.

"What we do have is an agreement on [between the White House and Republicans in Congress] -- is that it would not be prudent to shut the government shutdown," Lew told reporters Monday at a briefing focused on President Obama's budget blueprint.

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Budget

Obama Budget To Focus On Spending Cuts

Brian Beutler | February 13, 2011, 1:15PM

President Barack Obama

White House budget director Jack Lew suggested that President Obama will propose hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, when he presents Congress with his 10 year budget proposal Monday.

"We are reducing programs that are important programs that we care about, and we're doing what every family does when it sits around its kitchen table: we're making the choices about what do we need for the future," Lew said on CNN's State of the Union.

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Barack Obama

Obama: Geithner And Lew Will Try To Break Through Tax Cut 'Logjam'

Jillian Rayfield | November 30, 2010, 1:30PM

President Obama on CNN

In his remarks following today's summit with Democratic and Republican leadership, President Obama announced that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Budget Director Jack Lew will "work with representatives of both parties to break through this logjam" on tax cuts. "I've asked the leaders to appoint members to help in this negotiation process. They agreed to do that. That process is beginning right away," he said.

Obama called the meeting "productive," and though he acknowledged the two parties did not agree on the tax cuts issue, "there was broad agreement that we need to work to get that resolved before the end of the year."

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Jack Lew

No Recess Appointments For Obama During Election Season

Brian Beutler | September 30, 2010, 2:48PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

With Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R) blocking a vote on the confirmation of Jack Lew, President Obama's pick to lead the White House budget team, speculation ran rampant this week that Obama might offer Lew a recess appointment.

Well, that won't be happening.

Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided he'd hold multiple weekly pro-forma Senate sessions during the election-season recess, which will prevent Obama from legally recess appointing his stalled nominees. The reason, according to top Democratic and Republican aides has nothing to do with recess appointments per se, but rather with protecting the rest of Obama's executive and judicial nominees.

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Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Administration Officials Plead With Landrieu To Drop Hold On OMB Nominee Jack Lew

Christina Bellantoni | September 29, 2010, 8:47AM

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu is holding up President Obama's key economic appointee in critical fiscal times over a local issue his economic team has no control over, giving Republicans campaign ammunition and throwing a wrench into budget planning just as the Senate is set to go home for the elections.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and other top administration officials have been pleading with Landrieu (D-LA) to release her hold on the nomination of Jack Lew to be President Obama's new Office of Management and Budget director. But Landrieu says she won't budge until the moratorium on Gulf Coast drilling is lifted.

OMB doesn't have jurisdiction over drilling, and Democrats are privately outraged someone from their own party would block such a critical nomination -- with several suggesting the state of gridlock in the Senate has reached an untenable level. What's more, the delay to install Lew creates big budgetary problems just as the administration is prepping for several major initiatives, including the 2012 spending blueprint.

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