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Jack Lew: Congress Accepts White House Debt-Limit Deadline

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Photo Credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Photo Credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said lawmakers had accepted the administration’s deadline for raising the nation’s debt ceiling and that he expected Congress to act before Feb. 7.

“They need to act in that window,” Lew said of Congress, warning that “extraordinary measures” he was employing to avoid a default would run out next month.

He added that while there had been some confusion among lawmakers about when the Treasury would hit its borrowing limit, that had now been resolved.

“I think they’ve accepted the deadline,” the secretary told reporters aboard Air Force One, as he accompanies President Obama to an event in Pittsburgh, where they will tout new “MyRA” retirement accounts announced in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech.

In a letter to Congress last week, Lew said he would no longer be able to take steps to avoid a default by the end of February and told lawmakers they needed to act earlier in the month to provide a cushion. The revised date pushed up the deadline, which Lew had initially projected to fall in early March.

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Lew: US Will Hit Debt Ceiling Late February

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

On Wednesday, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said that America would once again hit the debt ceiling by late February, despite Congress’ temporary debt limit increase back in October 2013. That agreement suspended the debt ceiling and funded the federal government, as well as creating a committee with an eye toward a deficit reduction plan. The deal did contemplate that the debt ceiling would run out by February 7.

Lew wrote, “I respectfully urge Congress to provide certainty and stability to the economy and financial markets by acting to raise the debt limit before February 7, 2014, and certainly before late February.”

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Issa Subpoenas Lew for Tea Party Targeting Docs

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Photo Credit: APRep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, served Treasury Secretary Jack Lew with another subpoena relating to the IRS scandal in which the organization targeted Tea Party organizations, the committee announced on Friday.

This is the second subpoena Issa has served on Lew regarding the scandal. “Secretary Lew is responsible for providing all pertinent documents Treasury has in its possession, both within and outside the IRS,” Issa said in a statement. “The Committee is aware of responsive documents in Treasury’s possession that have not been produced to the Committee.”

In a press release, the House oversight committee detailed the committee’s and other House committees’ efforts to obtain documents from the IRS and the Treasury Department about the scandal—and how President Barack Obama’s administration has obfuscated and not complied with the House’s investigations and previous subpoena.

On June 13, Issa joined Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House oversight committee’s subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs; Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Charles Boustany (R-LA), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on oversight, to write to Lew to demand he produce nine categories of documents by June 27. On June 27, Issa’s committee notes in its release that the Treasury Department responded by producing “only 356 pages of documents, mostly letters from Member of Congress and drafts of congressional testimony.”

On Sept. 18, Issa and Jordan wrote to Lew to again demand compliance by Oct. 2 with the June letter’s request for nine categories of documents and made clear that the committee was prepared to use “compulsory process” (subpoenas) if Lew did not comply. On Oct. 2, the Treasury Department wrote to the committee and said it would not be able to meet the deadline due to the government shutdown. “As an accommodation to the Treasury Department, the Committee allowed an extension of time for a response,” Issa’s committee noted.

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Video: Fox News’ Chris Wallace Rips into Treasury Secretary Jack Lew: ‘Your History is Wrong,’ Obama’s Refusal to Negotiate is ‘Unprecedented’

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Photo Credit: YouTube ScreenshotBy Oliver Darcy.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace grilled Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Sunday, repeatedly asking him questions regarding the president’s refusal to negotiate with Republicans in Congress over the budget.

“I know the direction is bad,” Lew said about what would happen if the U.S. government defaulted on its debt. “There is a range of how bad. It is irresponsible and it is reckless to take that chance.”

“Despite these stakes, the president is refusing to negotiate,” Wallace countered, noting presidents have negotiated with Congress in the past over a variety of topics. “What’s unprecedented is not Congress tying strings; what’s unprecedented is a president refusing to negotiate.”

“Frankly, I think your history is wrong,” Lew said.

“With all due respect, your history is wrong,” Wallace responded. “This has happened over and over again, and presidents have negotiated.”

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Treasury Secretary Lew: Congress ‘Reckless’ if Debt Ceiling Not Raised

By Greg Richter.

Saying that the U.S. government is “just too important to the world,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urged Congress to raise the country’s debt ceiling by an Oct. 17 deadline because he has “run out of tricks” to keep it operating past that date.

Lew said it will be “dangerous” and “reckless” for Congress to pass an October deadline without raising the government’s borrowing limit.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Lew said he has been using “extraordinary measures” to make room to borrow money since the United States hit its debt ceiling in May.

“I have no more,” Lew said he wrote in a letter to Congress last week. The government has $30 billion of cash on hand, but on any given day it can have a $50 billion-$60 billion positive or negative cash flow.

“It won’t last very long,” he said of the reserves.

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Says Oct. 17 is the Debt Ceiling Deadline

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned Congress in a letter Wednesday morning that Oct. 17 will be the last day that the government has the funds to meet all its obligations if the debt ceiling is not raised.

That is within the range Lew has previously indicated, and in line with projections from outside analysts. But now Congress has a specific deadline. If it does not act before Oct. 17, a Thursday, the government risks defaulting on the debt, an outcome that Lew warned “could be catastrophic.”

Lew previously said that the Treasury would exhaust the extraordinary measures it has used to create headroom under the debt limit by mid-October, at which point it would have only $50 billion in cash on hand and whatever revenues come in on a given day with which to pay the government’s bills.

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Dishonesty from Obama Admin. Hits New Highs: Lew Denies IRS Targeted Conservatives

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Sunday the Internal Revenue Service exhibited “equal opportunity bad judgment” in the improper targeting of political groups, and there was no evidence of political pressure.

Just days after President Obama accused Washington of focusing attention on “phony scandals,” Lew said on “Fox News Sunday” mistakes were made in the IRS, but there is no evidence the White House or political officials drove the improper targeting.

“There’s no political official who condoned it or authorized it,” he said, adding that the mistakes that were made were “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable.”

The scandal broke when IRS officials apologized for improperly targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, and has led to Republican accusations the White House used the tax collecting agency to intimidate political opponents.

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Lew Asks Congress for Debt Increase, Says it’s ‘Not Open to Debate’

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have “no choice.”

“We will not negotiate over the debt limit,” Lew wrote. “The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate.”

Lew said that while President Obama is willing to discuss plans to reduce the nation’s deficit with Congress, those talks must be kept separate from any effort to raise the nation’s debt cap.

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Sessions: Jack Lew ‘Complicit’ In Violation Of Medicare Law

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Photo Credit: APThe office of Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), ranking member of the senate budget committee, sent out a statement claiming that Jack Lew, former White House Chief of Staff and current Treasury Secretary nominee, is “complicit in” violating the law that is “aimed at saving medicare.”

Alarmed by the unsustainable growth of Medicare’s unfunded obligations and the direct threat this posed to seniors, Congress in 2003 enacted a legal requirement that the President submit legislation if the Medicare Trustees issue a funding warning for the program as part of their annual report. This provision of federal law is commonly known as the Medicare Trigger, and it is intended to ensure that steps are taken to shore up the program’s finances before it is too late.

In 2008, then-President George W. Bush submitted Medicare legislation to Congress in response to such a warning being issued for the first time. Throughout the past four years of President Obama’s first term, no such legislation has been submitted, despite warnings from the Medicare Trustees every year.

Sessions’ office points out that the warnings were ignored “despite a clear and unambiguous legal obligation” to submit legislation in response. Jack Lew, as the head of the Office of Management and Budget in 2010 and 2011, was responsible for responding to the Medicare Trigger.

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Lew’s Blues:
 GOP probing Jack Lew’s failure to respond to Medicare insolvency warnings

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Photo Credit: APThe Office of Management and Budget has declined to cooperate with a Republican inquiry into whether treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew was complicit in violating federal Medicare law.

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee are probing Lew’s involvement in the administration’s alleged failure to respond to annual warnings about Medicare’s pending insolvency.

The administration is required by law to submit legislation to address the Medicare funding crisis within 15 days after a funding warning is issued by the Medicare Trustees.

According to Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee, the Obama administration has not responded to the last four years of funding warnings, including during 2010 and 2011 when Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The senators are requesting a detailed legislative proposal addressing the current Medicare funding warnings as well as all documents received or written by Lew regarding these warnings.

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Jack Lew, 2011: Obama’s Budget Will Pay Down National Debt

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On February 13, 2011, President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew went on CNN and claimed that Mr. Obama’s budget will pay down the national debt.

The plan, Lew said, “will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.”

Mr. Lew, of all people, should have known. After all, he was, at the time, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

But as this copy of the OMB’s own table makes clear, Mr. Lew’s televised promise to the American people was a sign of either deception or incompetence.

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