Opinion

Jack Lew vs. New York

Treasury Secretary-designate Jack Lew was unusually candid back in 2009 when he admitted: “I don’t consider myself an expert in some of these aspects of the financial industry,” like deregulation.

That could spell bad news for the country — and particularly New York.

The city’s economic stability is heavily dependent on the success of the financial-services industry — something a native New Yorker like Lew should know.

Indeed, Wall Street can’t be pleased with his appointment. A treasury secretary most definitely requires some expertise, and credibility, in these matters; it’s not enough to “defer to others,” as Lew promised he’d do as budget director.

Then again, his selection to replace Tim Geithner, a Wall Street veteran, suggests an agenda for the second Obama administration that puts economic growth far down the priority list.

Lew, after all, is a Beltway veteran and a decidedly political animal — indeed, the furthest thing from a serious economic theorist, despite two terms at OMB.

He’s the guy who’s been strong-arming Congress as the president’s chief of staff — to the point where Republicans simply don’t want to deal with him.

And make no mistake — Lew hews to a classic government-expansion line: high taxes, few spending cuts, preserving entitlements. Yet with New York sending more in taxes to Washington than it gets back, such a policy harms the state even more.

Fact is, Lew is unlikely to advise President Obama on the economy; his job will be to implement Obama’s agenda — with no bipartisan input.

Lew has another problem: his credibility. In 2011, he claimed that Obama’s budget wouldn’t add to the national debt, which was flat-out untrue.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) calls that “the most direct and important false assertion in my entire time in Washington.” An exaggeration, maybe, but not by much.

And it’s part of a pattern: Lew also claimed that Republicans are to blame for the Senate’s failure to pass a budget, because it must meet a 60-vote threshold. (In fact, budgets don’t require 60 votes.)

Or his false assertion that Social Security is “entirely self-financing.”

With Republicans preferring to concentrate their confirmation fire at Chuck Hagel for Defense and John Brennan for the CIA, Lew will probably make it through.

But tough questions need to be asked.

After that, hope for the best.