President Obama Announces Key Treasury Appointments

WASHINGTON ⿿Today, President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key posts at the Treasury Department: David S. Cohen, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Terrorist Financing; Alan B. Krueger, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Economic Policy; and Kim N. Wallace, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Legislative Affairs. Each of the nominees is currently serving as a Counselor to the Secretary of Treasury.

President Obama said, "Out of crisis arises opportunity. With the leadership of these accomplished individuals and our whole economic team, I am absolutely confident that we will turn around this economy and seize this opportunity to secure a more prosperous future.⿿

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the follow individuals today:


David S. Cohen, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Terrorist Financing

David Cohen is currently serving as a Counselor to the Secretary of Treasury. He was until recently a partner in the law firm of WilmerHale, where he focused on complex civil litigation, white collar criminal defense, internal investigations and anti-money laundering counseling. Immediately prior to joining the firm in 2001, Mr. Cohen worked at the Treasury Department, where he served concurrently as Acting Deputy General Counsel and Associate Deputy General Counsel, and was a recipient of the Treasury Secretary⿿s Award for outstanding service. Mr. Cohen received his J.D. from Yale Law School, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Cornell University. He resides in Chevy Chase, Maryland with his wife, Suzy, and their two children, Sam and Zeke.

Alan B. Krueger, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Economic Policy

Alan Krueger is currently serving as a Counselor to the Secretary of Treasury. He is the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he has held a joint appointment in the Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School since 1987. In 1994-95 Mr. Krueger served as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. Mr. Krueger has published widely on the economics of education, unemployment, income distribution, social insurance, regulation, terrorism and the environment. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the editorial board of Science, and serves as chief economist for the Council for Economic Education. He is the author of What Makes A Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism and Education Matters: A Selection of Essays on Education, and co-author of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, and co-author Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?

Mr. Krueger is a member of the Board of Directors of the Russell Sage Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Institutes for Research. He was named a Sloan Fellow in Economics in 1992 and an NBER Olin Fellow in 1989-90. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1996, a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists in 2005 and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association in 2004. He was awarded the Kershaw Prize by the Association for Public Policy and Management in 1997 (for distinguished contributions to public policy analysis by someone under the age of 40) and Mahalanobis Memorial Medal by the Indian Econometric Society in 2001. In 2002 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 2003 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics with David Card in 2006. From March 2000 to March 2006 he was a regular contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times.

Mr. Krueger received a B.S. degree, with honors, from Cornell University⿿s School of Industrial & Labor Relations in 1983, an A.M. in Economics from Harvard University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1987. He is married with two children.

Kim N. Wallace, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Legislative Affairs

Kim Wallace currently serves as a Counselor to the Secretary of Treasury. Previously, Mr. Wallace was a Managing Director and head of the Washington Research Group at Barclays Capital. Before that he served in the same role, for 14 years, at Lehman Brothers Inc. From 1989-1994, Mr. Wallace served as a legislative aide to then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, specializing in fiscal policy. He also worked 3 years as an analyst on the Senate Budget Committee, under then-Chairman Lawton Chiles.

Mr. Wallace received an M.S in Business from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife, Robin Vink, and their two children, Ava and Harrison.