In a matchup of firsts, Harris swears in Yellen
WASHINGTON >> Janet Yellen was sworn in Tuesday as the nation’s 78th Treasury secretary and the first woman to hold the office.
She was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman elected to the position, at a ceremony performed outside on the East Wing entrance to the White House in view of the department Yellen will now lead. Yellen’s husband, George Akerlof, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, and their son Robert, also an economist, were present for the brief ceremony.
Yellen became the third of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees to win Senate approval on a vote of 84-15 late Monday. All of the no votes came from Republican senators.
The administration has emphasized the need to get its nominees approved quickly given the threats facing the country from a global pandemic and a slumping economy.
Yellen is expected to play a key role in gaining congressional approval of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which is running into stiff opposition from Republicans who believe the price tag is too high.
Speaking on the Senate floor before Monday’s vote, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted the former Federal Reserve chairwoman had bipartisan support.
Schumer said Yellen has a “breathtaking range of experience” and support for her nomination reflected “just how well suited she is to manage the economic challenges of our time ... particularly during this moment of economic crisis.”
Before the approval by the full Senate, Yellen had received unanimous backing from the Senate Finance Committee. Republicans on the panel said they had policy disagreements with Yellen and the Biden administration in such areas as raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, but believed it was important to allow Biden to assemble his economic team quickly.
At her confirmation hearing before the Finance Committee last week, Yellen argued that without prompt action the nation faced the threat of a “longer, more painful recession.”