With Lew, Obama Takes a Fiscal Turn at the Treasury Department

There isn't much ideological difference between incoming Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, but there is a major difference in their professional backgrounds and interests. Geithner never worked for a financial services company and Lew put some time in making paper at Citigroup, but Geithner is actually very much a finance guy and Lew is very much not. Before becoming Treasury Secretary, Geithner's previous roles were mostly in the bank regulation and international finance game. He ran the New York Fed, as a subcabinet Treasury official was very involved in the Asian financial crisis, worked in the Japanese embassy early in his career, and did a stint at the IMF. Lew's background all involves a very different side of the Treasury portfolio—he worked on Capitol Hill for a long time, worked at the DNC, worked in the Clinton White House on health ca...