Here's Obama's Message to GOP by Appointing Lew Treasury Secretary

CNBC ^ | 10 Jan 2013 | John Carney

[george76]

Barack Obama is sending a pointed message to Republicans by nominating Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary: I'm not backing down from this budget fight.

This is certainly a blow to any hope that Republicans might have had that Obama would flinch from his pledge not to negotiate over the debt ceiling. The president has said he will demand a clean bill raising the debt ceiling, unattached to any conditions or spending cuts.

To call Lew's relationship with Capitol Hill Republicans strained would be an understatement. According to some on the Hill, there just is no relationship anymore.

...

If Obama wanted to appoint a man who could personify his no negotiation pledge, there would be no better pick than Lew.

[null and void]

He certainly has set himself on a high pedestal.

Hope nothing happens...

[cashless]

Wonder if the Republicans will read/hear this and give up now instead of keeping the country in suspense before they capitulate and not lose their invitations to “all the right partys”? We knew they were going to compromise their principles in the fiscal cliff fiasco. And we know they will raise the debt ceiling because they are too stupid to let the DemonCrats frame the debate and will even use DemonCrat terms and be too timid to call them liars, Socialists, Marxists, statists, and Constitution hating traitors.

[AU72]

Why not, the Republicans have rolled over like a beat puppy every time against Obama.

[FlyingEagle]

Well it is a very sane idea not to increase the debt ceiling. Then the Feds will have to rein in spending. How is that a bad thing? Just do not pass the legislation, then debt stops increasing.

[Ouderkirk]

If Obama wanted to appoint a man who could personify his no negotiation pledge,

Ok Barry...you don't want to negotiate they we won't negotiate. We are not raising the debt ceiling. No more borrowing for obamaphones, food stamps, welfare of any kind.

[VeniVidiVici]

Let Barry the Whiner demand all the “clean bills” he wants.

The Republicans need to just keep saying if Barry wants movement on the debt ceiling, put it in a budget bill and submit it to congress.

[willardwx]

Lew has no bona fides in economic matters. He is a political hatchet man and should be summarily dismissed. He is a protagonist to legitimate entreaties from Republicans and represents the arrogance of this dictator, omammy.

[OKRA2012]

” I’m not backing down from this budget fight.”

Arrogant Obama as usual is unwilling to negotiate with the Republicans.

[Cyber Liberty]

I'm not backing down from this budget fight.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Obama intends to refuse to engage the fight.

[353FMG]

Why should he negotiate with them when he knows that they’re nothing but a bunch of GOPhers?

[originalbuckeye]

I got the impression, from Jeff Sessions, that Lew had outright lied to Congress. How can anyone vote to confirm? Dem or Repub?

[Intolerant in NJ]

James Grant says he should now be called the Secretary of the Debt, because there’s no treasure left in the Treasury.....

[Dick Bachert]

“Balls” cried John Boehner!
If I had two, I could be real man!!!

[lentulusgracchus]

The Republicans need to just keep saying if Barry wants movement on the debt ceiling, put it in a budget bill and submit it to congress.

The Pubbies need to write their own budget bill, just like Congress did for 200 years before all this unseemly deference to the 'Rats' presidential nabobs and rajahs.

And whoops, whaddayaknow, no Obamaphone money, and no increase in the debt ceiling -- Live with it, Barky!