Treasury

Jack Lew, who has been nominated as the next treasury secretary, oversaw up as many as a hundred Cayman Island investments when he worked at Citi Bank as chief operating officer of the alternative investment services unit, SEC disclosures reveal. It has previously been reported that Lew himself had been invested in a fund that was based in the Cayman Islands.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama called Cayman Island investments "the biggest tax scam on record." Now, in 2013, President Obama has nominated Jack Lew, who had $56,000 in Cayman Island investments, to be the next secretary of Treasury. 

Here's Obama making the claim in 2008:

In a blog post on the New York Times website, columnist Paul Krugman says no to serving as treasury secretary. Which is clarifying, even though he was never offered the job anyway.

The Treasury Department is telling its staff not to worry about the "fiscal cliff," an internal memorandum sent to all employees reveals. The memo, which is signed by the deputy secretary of the treasury, Neal S. Wolin, states that "there is no reason why both sides should not be able to come together" to reach a deal.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, is releasing a statement this evening that claims President Barack Obama's "secret" plan "increases spending by more than $1 trillion above the current baseline."

"In other words," Sessions adds, "spending will increase $1 trillion above the already projected growth after enactment of the Budget Control Act as part of the last debt deal. It achieves not one dollar in net spending reduction or debt reduction, and it continues the country on a dangerously unsustainable debt path."

None. That’s the total of on-the-other-hand good news I have to report this week. Lest you think I am overlooking the debt deal cut in Washington last week, consider this:

In a stunning development on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department accused the Iranian government of sponsoring al Qaeda. Treasury designated six al Qaeda terrorists and reported that they are working for a network headquartered in Iran. This al Qaeda network is “headed by Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, a prominent Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator, operating under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.”

As of this writing, the president has pulled off a great political trick, with the help of some kamikaze Republicans.

Why, exactly, do we need to extend the debt limit to the point where the federal government can borrow another $2.4 trillion (hardly a nice round number) — about the same amount of money, even in inflation-adjusted dollars, that we borrowed to fight all of World War II? Because, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made abundantly clear during his Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace, $2.4 trillion is the amount of money that the Obama administration thinks it needs to borrow (on behalf of taxpayers, who will have to pay it back) to get Obama through the next election.

I just ran into former White House chief of staff/Treasury secretary/secretary of State Jim Baker at Reagan National airport. After some small talk and some sharing of our pleasure at the killing of Osama bin Laden and our admiration for all involved, from the president to the Navy SEALs, we drifted into a discussion of the debt ceiling fight.

The 9/11 Commission castigated the CIA for neglecting to collect and analyze intelligence about terrorist financing. It noted that “information about terrorist money helps us to understand [al-Qaeda] networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations.”

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury announced targeted financial sanctions on a formidable list of Iranian companies, persons, and entities. Some of the designations specifically target Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, while others target the country’s energy sector, which has kept its economy on life support. Others target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a terrorist organization tied to both the nuclear program and the energy sector.