Budget battle: Treasury secretary hopes lawmakers learned lesson

Treasure Secretary Jack Lew said the government shutdown and near-default on US debt has increased the nation's borrowing costs and affected economic activity. 'It can't happen again,' he said. 

|
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington to urge Congress to reopen the government and lift the US borrowing cap Oct. 10. Lew said Sunday, the fight over government spending pushed the country near the brink of default and the lesson has to be that it can't happen again.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says the just-resolved budget fight was "a little bit scary" because it "got close to the edge," and the lesson has to be that the US won't be put in that position again.

"It can't happen again," said the Obama administration's chief spokesman on the economy.

An impasse between President Barack Obama and a group of congressional Republicans over spending for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 led to a 16-day, partial government shutdown and the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Lawmakers also pushed the country to the edge of economic default by threatening the Treasury Department's authority to continue borrowing the money needed to pay the nation's bills.

The situation was resolved last Wednesday when Congress agreed to fund the government through Jan. 15 and allow Treasury to continue borrowing through Feb. 7.

A group of House and Senate lawmakers has until Dec. 13 to produce a spending deal to stave off another shutdown and possible default in early 2014.

During the period of economic uncertainty spawned by the shutdown and the default threat, Lew said the nation's borrowing costs increased and economic activity was affected. He offered no dollar figures during an interview with NBC television's "Meet the Press" that was taped Friday and broadcast Sunday.

"The direction is that it took an economy that is fighting hard to get good economic growth going, to create jobs for the American people, and it took it in the wrong direction," Lew said of the budget fight. "Our job is to move things in the right direction. This one was a little bit scary because it got so close to the edge."

He said he now looks to Republican leaders who have said publicly that the shutdown was the wrong strategy for the party to pursue.

"I think the message that we have to send going forward is that there was a turning point on Wednesday night and this won't happen again," Lew said. "It can't happen again."

Lew also commented on negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, saying it was premature for any talk of softening stiff economic penalties.

Iran has said its program is for peaceful purposes and has denied claims by the US and other countries that the real goal is to build a nuclear weapon.

"What I'm saying is, we need to see that they're taking the steps to move away from having nuclear weapons capacity," said Lew, whose department enforces the sanctions. "We need to see real, tangible evidence of it, and that we will not make moves in the sanctions until we see those kinds of moves."

Nuclear talks in Geneva between Iran and six world powers ended on an upbeat note Wednesday, with Western and Iranian negotiators announcing a follow-up round next month.

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Budget battle: Treasury secretary hopes lawmakers learned lesson
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1020/Budget-battle-Treasury-secretary-hopes-lawmakers-learned-lesson
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe