US Senate confirms Yellen as first female Treasury secretary

The U.S. Senate on Jan. 25 voted by a wide margin to confirm Janet Yellen as the first woman to lead the Treasury Department, giving her a key role in Congress negotiations over a huge COVID-19 economic relief package.

Yellen is not new to the role of trailblazer, as she also was the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve, from 2014 to 2018, and previously the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

Her immediate job in the first weeks of the new administration will be to help win Congress approval for President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion rescue package to secure U.S. economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

That will entail convincing skeptical lawmakers that the benefit of more spending outweighs concerns about the country's soaring debt level.

"Neither the President-elect, nor I, propose this relief package without an appreciation for the country's debt burden," Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee at her confirmation hearing last week.

"But right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big."

Earlier on Jan. 25, Biden said that while he would prefer bipartisan support for his stimulus plan, time is of the essence.

"If we don't invest now, we're going to lose so much altitude in terms of our employment base and our economic growth, it's going to be harder to re-establish it," he said.

"We can afford to do it now. As a matter of fact... we can't afford not to invest now."

But Democrats control the Senate only with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, so getting the package through may require support from Republicans.

Democratic senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Finance Committee, called Yellen an "exceptional economist" who...