Free Republic

A few weeks ago, it was quite revealing -- but not surprising -- to hear Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew imply that corporate America should willingly pay the highest corporate-tax rates in the world as part of its "patriotic" duty. This kind of discourse demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of capitalism, which is an important component of American exceptionalism. In our system, people do not go into business, in many cases risking everything they have and more, in order to support the government. They obviously take those kinds of risks to make money. Instead of chastising American businesses for making financially...

(UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday urged Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit to "provide certainty to the economy and to the financial markets."In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Lew said the Treasury was implementing extraordinary measures to pay the government's bills as of Friday, with the expiration of a temporary suspension of the statutory debt limit that was part of the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2014 -- a compromise spending bill that led to the end to a government shutdown."Because Congress has not acted to approve normal borrowing authority, Treasury must begin implementing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration warned on Monday it could start defaulting on the government's obligations "very soon" after hitting a limit on the national debt later this month. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the federal government should hit the ceiling by the end of February unless Washington raises the nation's limit on public borrowing. The federal government would then burn through its remaining cash more quickly that it would at other times of the year because the Treasury will be issuing tax refund checks, Lew said. "Without borrowing authority, at some point very soon, it would not be...

The swirling lines from Linden Bateman’s pen have been conscripted into a national fight to keep cursive writing in American classrooms. Cursive. Penmanship. Handwriting. In years gone by, it helped distinguish the literate from the illiterate.But now, in the digital age, people are increasingly communicating by computer and smartphone. No handwritten signature necessary. Call it a sign of the times. When the new Common Core educational standards were crafted, penmanship classes were dropped. But at least seven of the 45 states that adopted the standards are fighting to restore the cursive instruction. …

The Talk Shows October 20th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Cruz; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Bob Woodward said that sequestration was Obama's & Lew's idea. Why now is Obama againt it? Why was he for it before he was against it? Why does he flip-flop on his CORE beliefs (raising the debt ceiling, the individual mandate, sequestration, etc)? Not secondary or tertiary beliefs...core beliefs. And why is Lew fearmongering over the debt ceiling? What he has said about it recently has been debunked by Moody's.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, responsible for enforcing economic and trade sanctions against Iran and Syria, is being hindered because it has been pared down to a “skeleton crew” by the government shutdown, a Treasury official tells ABC News. “This massively reduced staffing not only impairs OFAC’s ability to execute its mission, it also undermines [the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes] broader efforts to combat money laundering and illicit finance, protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system, and disrupt the financial underpinnings of our adversaries,” according to the official, who asked not...

Lew Op-Ed: U.S. Failure to Pay Bills Hurts Everyone 10/3/2013 WASHINGTON – In an op-ed to be published in the October 4, 2013 edition of USA TODAY, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew discusses the importance of Congress raising the debt limit immediately to avoid self-inflicted wounds that could impede economic growth and create uncertainty for families and businesses. The text of the piece follows: U.S. failure to pay bills hurts everyone If Congress does not raise the debt limit soon, seniors, veterans, kids, among others, are at risk. By Jack Lew It might be hard to believe, but there is...

Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew called on Congress Thursday to "raise the debt ceiling as soon as members get back to Washington after summer recess." Lew delivered a strident, partisan speech, repeating familiar arguments from the 2012 presidential campaign. Many of Lew's remarks were, in fact, repetitions of remarks he had given on May 7 at the City Club of Cleveland. Compare the following paragraphs (emphasis added on verbatim repetitions): Cleveland, May 7: Just over four years ago, when President Obama first took office, economic conditions were the worst our nation has seen since the Great Depression. Our economy...

The White House publicity machine has tried to turn the national conversation from the topics of the day to attempt to make our President relevant again. Obama, who has gained the new nickname Griffin (as in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man), has all but disappeared since his failed attempt to change the national gun laws in the beginning of this year. To clear grass so high that Obama needs a weed whacker just to be seen, his team has attempted a typical Obama technique. In this case they are creating a new mantra to discredit legitimate concerns of American voters...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew for withholding documentation from Congress in the ongoing IRS Tea Party Scandal investigation. The Oversight Committee accuses the Obama Administration of impeding and obstructing the investigation. “During the past two weeks, President Obama and you have repeatedly labeled the IRS’s strategy of targeting Americans for their political beliefs as a ‘phony’ scandal. While the Obama Administration has so publicly deflected responsibility for the targeting, it simultaneously has attempted to thwart congressional oversight into the matter… the IRS has engaged in a systematic effort to delay, frustrate,...

House Republicans on Friday accused Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew of obstructing their investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party and conservative groups, and issued subpoenas for more agency documents. Oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa sent a scathing latter to Lew blasting him and Obama for dismissing the GOP’s claims about IRS targeting as a phony scandal, saying that Lew has attempted to thwart his investigation. (Snip) The IRS came under scrutiny when its auditor reported earlier this year that the agency had singled out groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names for special scrutiny when the...

When Obama condemns “phony scandals,” we can assume investigators are getting warm. Back on May 13, President Obama reacted heatedly to news that the IRS had delayed and harassed conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. “I have got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” he told reporters. How is the president living up to that pledge? At best, meh. At worst, we are seeing a slow-motion cover-up. In a speech he made last week, he railed against an “endless parade” of “phony scandals”...

Amazingly, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew doesn't think it's "appropriate" for him simply to ask the IRS's chief counsel (and President Obama's political appointee) William Wilkins what he knows about the targeting scandal. Obviously, it's much easier to continue to insist that there's "no evidence" of wrongdoing if one goes far out of one's way to avoid learning any potentially unwelcome facts. Jack Lew Refuses To Answer If William Wilkins Has Been Asked About IRS Targeting

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Treasury secretary Jack Lew on Sunday got specific about President Obama’s contention that “phony scandals” are distracting lawmakers from tackling the important issues facing the country. With regard to the IRS’s targeting of tea-party groups, Lew said, there is “no evidence” that any political appointee was involved in the matter, and “The attempt to try to keep finding that evidence is creating the kind of sense of a phony scandal that was being referred to there.” “We have to distinguish reality from the part that is phony,” Lew told NBC’s David Gregory. He went...

The Obama administration dug in Sunday on its vow to reject proposed spending cuts by congressional Republicans in upcoming budget talks, but declined to say whether the president would veto their proposals or allow a government shutdown. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit. He also said the president was not going to accept a budget in which domestic spending is further cut to soften the blow to Defense spending.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace went after Treasury Secretary Jack Lew over the investigation—or lack thereof, in Wallace’s estimation—of alleged targeting by the IRS of conservative 501(c)(4) groups. The IRS scandal—which had receded in recent weeks after an audit by the Inspector General revealed progressive groups were scrutinized in addition to conservative organizations, and produced no evidence linking the behavior to a political appointee—was revived this week when President Barack Obama’s invoked “phony scandals” in his speech in Galesburg, Illinois. Lew was directed by Obama to follow up on the Inspector General’s report

Obama: "...the economy is far stronger now than it was four and a half years ago." ...as long as one ignores the reality of the following chart... We've seen macro "Hope" and micro "Reality", but for the man in the street, it would appear from the chart above that the trajectory for 'recovery' green shoots is decidedly down and getting worse... even as the President tells the American public they are so much better off... (h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Sunday warned Congress against manufacturing a crisis over federal spending in the months ahead, as looming deadlines set the stage for a repeat of the political deadlock which two years ago triggered worldwide financial market turmoil. "We have already done a lot of deficit reduction," he said in an interview on NBC. "We need to get the debt limit extended in a way that doesn't create a crisis," Lew said.

The Talk Shows July 28th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Treasury Secretary Jack Lew; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Lew; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Christine Quinn, candidate for New York mayor.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rogers; Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.THIS WEEK (ABC): Lew; Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Lew; Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.