President Obama chooses Chief of Staff Jack Lew to replace Geithner as Treasury secretary

Today President Barack Obama announced the nomination of White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew to replace outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

“Jack has the distinction of having worked and succeeded in some of the toughest jobs in Washington and the private sector. As a congressional staffer in the 1980s, he helped negotiate the deal between President Reagan and Tip O’neil to save social security. Under President Clinton, he presided over three budget surpluses in a row. So all the talk out there about deficit reduction, making sure our books are balanced, this is the guy who did it.”

The former director of the Office of Management and Budget pledged to work towards a “sound economy” and a safer world. But some have criticized Lew’s time in the private sector. The watchdog group Public Citizen expressed concern about Lew’s “deep Wall Street connections,” noting his previous work at Citigroup. Speaking at the National Democratic Institute in September, Lew praised controversial international trade agreements in Asia and Latin America and pushed for opening markets around the world.

“We’re harnessing our economic power, finalizing trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to increase US exports, expanding trade with emerging powers from Brazil to India to Indonesia, working to open new markets for American businesses, increasing exchanges and collaborations in science and technology and pursuing a high standard trade pact in the Pacific that should be a model and will be a model for the world.”

As of this week, more than 230,000 people signed a petition to urge President Obama to nominate nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman to head the Treasury Department, citing Krugman’s prescience in predicting the housing bubble, his call for more job creation and his opposition to cuts to social security and medicare benefits. Jack Lew still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.