Obama gets double win as Lew confirmed for Treasury post

The U.S. Senate voted 71-26 — with support from 20 Republicans — to confirm Lew, a former White House budget director and Wall Street executive, providing Obama with a second new cabinet appointment approval in as many days.

A day earlier, the chamber voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon, after a contentious, seven-week process.

While Hagel's confirmation was marked by partisan acrimony and delays, Lew's nomination sailed through, and the president issued a swift thanks to the Senate for its bipartisan action.

“At this critical time for our economy and our country, there is no one more qualified for this position than Jack,” Obama said in a statement.

“As my chief of staff, Jack was by my side as we confronted our nation's toughest challenges,” the president said, hailing Lew as “a master of fiscal issues who can work with leaders on both sides of the aisle.”

“I will continue to rely on his advice and sound judgment as we work to create good, middle-class jobs.”

Lew, expected to be sworn in early Thursday, replaces Timothy Geithner, who steered the Obama administration through the financial crisis.

The White House is now locked in a new showdown, this time with Republican lawmakers over how to avoid some US$85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that are set to kick in from Friday.

Lawmakers acknowledge the deadline will likely pass without a deal to avert the cuts, and that those negotiations would be rolled into next month's debate over 2013 government funding levels.

Lew, who was a prime budget negotiator in 2011, is likely to be involved in the March negotiations.

His nomination was not without hiccups. Some Republicans, notably Senator Jeff Sessions, highlighted Lew's reputation as a dogged defender of Democratic party stances in budget negotiations with White House opponents.

Sessions cited Lew's statement in early 2011, when he said the proposed budget would add nothing to the national debt.

But Sessions said on the Senate floor that the budget would have enlarged the debt by some US$600 billion per year over the next decade, and he blasted Lew's statement as the “greatest financial misrepresentation in (U.S.) history.”

One senator who caucuses with the Democrats, independent Bernie Sanders, voted against Lew, while some Democrats revealed their discomfort in having a Wall Street insider in the position.

First-term Senator Elizabeth Warren, who made her reputation defending Americans from Wall Street abuse, said she was “very hopeful” Lew would be a good Treasury chief.

But the Obama administration “still has work to do to fix the housing market and reduce the risk of future crises,” she added.

“I do not believe that putting Wall Street executives in key assistant secretary and regulatory positions is a cure-all for our problems.”

Lew, 57, worked under President Bill Clinton in the Office of Management and Budget after an earlier start as a congressional aide and as an attorney in the private sector.

In 2001, he moved to New York University, and then in 2006 was recruited by Citigroup, where for two years he was chief operating officer in the alternative investments unit.

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