{"id":168349,"date":"2026-04-17T07:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168349\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:41:07","slug":"penn-hosts-former-treasury-secretary-for-discussion-on-public-sector-careers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168349\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn hosts former Treasury Secretary for discussion on public sector careers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew visited Penn on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Lew opened the event by reflecting on his experience in government and sharing his views on careers in the public sector. The discussion was moderated by College sophomore and Government and Politics Association President Ferenc Brezo.<\/p>\n

During his remarks, Lew told the audience that \u201cthere is no place where you can do more good\u201d than in the public sector, recalling his time serving under former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

Lew also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under two administrations and as United States Ambassador to Israel under former President and Penn professor Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say I fundamentally changed the world,\u201d Lew said, adding that \u201cif you didn\u2019t want to see your name in lights, you could chip away at problems by just doing the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n

Lew also discussed the importance of finding common ground in politics, highlighting that his government work \u201cinvolved an enormous amount of compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the moderated conversation, Lew described his role as Secretary of the Treasury in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Although the Department of Treasury enacted financial policy changes, Lew reiterated that it failed to ameliorate \u201cthe sense of unfairness\u201d people felt at the time.<\/p>\n

Lew also described his work addressing international economic issues, including the economic \u201cbattlefield\u201d between Russia and Ukraine. With regards to domestic policy, he expressed pride for his work with Obama to find a solution to conflicts over Puerto Rico\u2019s debt.<\/p>\n

The conversation then turned toward Lew\u2019s most recent role as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never imagined myself as an ambassador,\u201d Lew said, explaining how he accepted the role after being informed that the U.S. was in a position to \u201cnormalize\u201d relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Lew was confirmed as ambassador just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job was to deal with a country that was in trauma, where all parties were in trauma,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lew also emphasized that the U.S. government\u2019s responsibility at the time was to minimize civilian impacts. He stated that while his team was unable to achieve all their objectives, they were able to make a significant impact.<\/p>\n

In response to a question about 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump\u2019s investigation into Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. He stated that effective monetary policy requires insulation from political forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the Fed making judgements based on the data and their analysis as they understand it or are they being driven by political pressures?\u201d Lew asked. \u201cI think it\u2019s crucial that the answer be that they\u2019re driven by the data, even if they make a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lew also addressed questions about depleting Social Security funds. He proposed \u201cvery modest\u201d changes in contributions and the retirement age as possible strategies to improve the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right time to deal with this would have been ten years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cThe next best time is as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew visited Penn on Wednesday. Lew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-168349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}