Senate Confirms Janet Yellen as First Female Treasury Secretary

Janet Yellen was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the country’s 78th Treasury secretary and the first woman to hold the job, putting her in charge of overseeing an economy that continues to be hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Senate approved Yellen in a 84-15 vote on Monday, making her among the first of President Joe Biden’s cabinet picks to be confirmed. She will become only the second American to have been both Federal Reserve chair and Treasury secretary.

The 74-year-old was also the first woman to head the U.S. central bank, which she left in early 2018 after overseeing a winding back of monetary stimulus after the last recession and its slow recovery. Now, she’s back in crisis-fighting mode, this time as a Democratic administration’s top economic official.

Yellen’s top priority will be to stoke a recovery that’s weakened amid record Covid-19 deaths, by helping sell the $1.9 trillion Biden stimulus plan that’s run into resistance from GOP lawmakers. She will also help to shape policy toward China after the Trump administration’s legacy of confrontation and tariff hikes.

Other objectives include addressing the economic risks of climate change, with plans to set up a “hub” at the Treasury looking at the issue. She will also be responsible for tax policy, sanctions, the administration’s stance on the dollar, financing the government and ensuring the stability of the financial system.

“The symbolism and sense of technical expertise and decades of Washington experience that Janet Yellen brings will bring immediate credibility” to Biden’s economic agenda, said Tim Adams, who served as a Treasury undersecretary during the George W. Bush administration and now heads the Institute of International Finance, a banking group. “Yellen will be a key anchor of the economic team.”

Yellen has been a trailblazer throughout her career: She was the only woman out of 24 students in 1971 to earn a doctorate in economics from Yale University. She later taught economics at Harvard, and worked for more than 16 years at the Fed, including a stint as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco during the financial crisis.

Brooklyn, New York-born Yellen follows Jimmy Carter appointee G. William Miller, who also served as Treasury secretary after being Fed chair. She’ll be the first to have had both those jobs and head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, a role she had in the Clinton administration.

She had an early look at the challenges of the new job in her confirmation hearing at the Senate Finance panel last week. Her argument that it’s critical to “act big” now with emergency deficit spending to avoid long-term “scarring” in the economy was rejected by Republican lawmakers voicing concerns about rising debt.

“Right now, short term, I feel that we can afford what it takes to get the economy back on its feet, to get us through the pandemic,” Yellen told the committee. She highlighted the opportunity presented by historically low interest rates, and flagged that debt-servicing payments as a share of the economy are lower today than before the 2008 financial crisis.

It’s not just Republicans raising questions on Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal. White House economic adviser Brian Deese was asked in a Sunday call with lawmakers from both parties for the basis of such a large package coming on the heels of the $900 billion pandemic relief bill approved last month. GOP members have also been vociferous in criticizing Biden’s inclusion of social safety-net measures such as a minimum wage hike, which they have long opposed.

Another near-term priority for Biden and Yellen is filling several senior positions at the Treasury. The president nominated Wally Adeyemo, who worked in the Obama administration, to be the deputy secretary, a position that requires Senate confirmation. But nominations are still to come for key undersecretary and assistant secretary jobs, among others.

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[mannybravo]

Oh great I think she was involved in the 2008 housing market crash . God help us all..

[JesusSavesFromSin]

Jesus Christ saves from sin.
Romans 3: 23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Hebrews 9: 27
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Isaiah 64: 6
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Revelation 21: 8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Romans 5: 8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
John 3: 16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 14: 6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Romans 10: 9-10.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Jesus said John 5: 24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
1John 5: 10-13
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Ephesians 2: 8-9
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Romans 8: 1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 15: 3-4
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
2 Corinthians 5: 21
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.