White House Chief of Staff and former Budget Director Jack Lew

When President Obama announced Jack Lew’s nomination for Treasury Secretary he promised Lew would help bring people together, I doubt this is what he meant.

From ABC News:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, declared today that Jack Lew must “never” become secretary of the Treasury.

“To confirm Mr. Lew would be to acquiesce in a policy of dishonesty to the American people,” Sessions said.  ”For me, no mea culpa, no excuse, can erase the errors of Mr. Lew.”…

At issue, Sessions said, is what he called Lew’s “outrageous and false” testimony before the Senate Budget committee nearly two years ago. Sessions said the testimony should disqualify Lew from becoming Treasury secretary.

“To look the American people in the eye and make such a statement remains the most direct and important false assertion during my entire time in Washington,” Sessions said. “We need a secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity, not the path to decline. Jack Lew is not that man.”

Senator Bernie Sanders also issued a statement on the Lew nomination:

“As a supporter of the president, I remain extremely concerned that virtually all of his key economic advisers have come from Wall Street. In my view, we need a treasury secretary who is prepared to stand up to corporate America and their powerful lobbyists and fight for policies that protect the working families in our country. I do not believe Mr. Lew is that person.”

And a blast from the past courtesy of Salon – Lew worked aggressively to bust a union:

Lew, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton, joined NYU as chief operating officer and executive vice president in 2004. At the time, NYU was the only private university in the United States whose graduate students had a union contract. By the time Lew left two years later, NYU graduate students had lost their collective bargaining rights. In between, picketers hoisted “Wanted” posters with his face on them.

It’s unlikely labor will hold a grudge and mobilize against the Lew nomination but it seems at least a few Senators will.