Lew was confirmed with a 71-26 vote. Compared with the bruising confirmation battle of Chuck Hagel as Defense secretary, Lew’s was a breeze…

Geithner stepped down in January. He was the last holdover from President Obama’s original economic team.

Lew is expected to jump right in to the debate over how to address some $85 billion in forced budget cuts that are scheduled to hit Friday. He was part of the team that came up with the original idea of the cuts, as a key player in the 2011 debt ceiling talks. At the time, nobody thought the cuts would ever come to pass, as they were intended to be so horrible that they’d force a budget deal.