Obama to appoint Lew to lead Treasury

OTTAWA - Agence France-Presse

Budget Director Jack Lew speaks about the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget. AFP photo

President Barack Obama will nominate White House chief of staff Jack Lew to be his second-term Secretary of the Treasury, turning to one of Washington’s most knowledgeable budget experts to manage prickly fiscal negotiations with Congress and steer the still-shaky national economy.
 
Lew’s nomination, expected Thursday, accelerates the overhaul of Obama’s top advisers, with new leaders at the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and Labor Department. Obama also must replace Lew with a new chief of staff, and that could have a ripple effect through the West Wing’s senior ranks.
 
A day ahead of the formal announcement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney praised the expected nominee: “Over the past more than quarter of a century, Jack Lew has been an integral part of some of the most important budgetary financial and fiscal agreements, bipartisan agreements in Washington.”