Jacob "Jack" Lew, the White House chief of staff, and former two-time director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is President Barack Obama's pick to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary according to a report in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. The nomination could come as early as tomorrow.
National Underwriter reported in November that the initial speculation was that Geithner would be replaced by Lew.
Lew, 57, a Georgetown University–trained lawyer, has served both Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama in various capacities, has run a university, and has worked in the private sector as a lawyer and operations officer.
When Obama nominated Lew to serve as OMB director in July 2010, he said at the time that Lew's experience and good judgment would be an asset in the administration's "efforts to cut down the deficit and put our nation back on a fiscally responsible path."
Lew, who departed from OMB the first time in 2001, left the next administration with a $237 billion surplus. During his tenure at OMB, the U.S. budget operated at a surplus for three consecutive years, according to the White House.
Treasury and the White House did not return email inquiries and stayed mum on reports of Lew's potential nomination. Geithner had told the present administration he would stay on through the end of the year until a new secretary was nominated or confirmed.
Lew, if chosen and confirmed, would chair the Dodd-Frank-created Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), and oversee (through intermediaries like Deputy Secretary and former insurance executive Neal Wolin) the Federal Insurance Office (FIO).
