GEITHNER THEE HENCE!
A number of Republicans are calling for Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner's head in the midst of this downgrade disaster, and if it
weren't for the fact a new Treasury Secretary worth a damn would be
immediately and permanently blocked by the Senate GOP, I'd be agreeing
with them.
GOP Sen. Jim DeMint is of course one of those in Congress who would basically assure any confirmation fight would last well into 2012.
"The
president should demand that Secretary Geithner resign and immediately
replace him with someone who will help Washington focus on balancing
our budget and allowing the private sector to create jobs," DeMint said
in a report Saturday in The Hill.
"For months he
opposed all efforts to reduce the debt in return for a debt ceiling
increase. His opposition to serious spending and debt reforms has been
reckless and now the American people will pay the price," said DeMint, a
Tea Party favorite.
“We
were warned by all the credit agencies that a failure to deal with the
debt would lead to this downgrade in our credit rating,” she said.
“But instead, the president submitted a budget that had a $1.5 trillion
deficit, the he request a $2.4 trillion blank check on top of that.
President Obama is destroying the foundations of our economy, one beam
at a time. I call on the president to seek the immediate resignation of
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and submit a plan that balances the
budget in year. Turn the economy around and put our people back to
work.”
Other Tea Party candidates
are picking up the call as well. It's clear what the plan is: If
Geithner goes, then it's an admission that the Republicans are correct
on the "theory" that the S&P downgrade is all President Obama's
fault. At the same time, there are a number of progressives like myself
who freely admit that appointing Tim Geithner as SecTreas was arguably
the President's biggest mistake in his first term.
Now I'm a strong supporter of the President.
I am not however a anywhere close to a fan of Geithner.
Not only should have the President gotten rid of him sooner, he never
should have appointed anyone that close to Hank Paulson to the job in
the first place. Geither has made a chain reaction of economic disaster
events possible, from refusal to go after the banks in 2009, to
weakening the Dodd-Frank legislation, to his own silly tax return
nonsense.
And
now we're in a situation where getting rid of him becomes a proxy fight
for rejecting the President himself, leaving a very rotten taste in my
mouth. Getting rid of him now would only ensure a huge confirmation
fight and no leadership at Treasury at a time where we're going to need
it. As much as I despise Geithner, sacking him now would only be
handing the GOP another loaded weapon to go after the President with.
It's
infuriating. If there's one guy who has been wrong in the Obama
administration since day one, it's Geithner...and yet getting rid of him
now is a tacit admission of the President's mistake. It's smart of the
White House to go after S&P's credibility on this, but they're
going to have to fight back against the Republicans as well. The
Geithner problem I've been warning about for 30 months has now
officially bitten the President and the country right on the ass.
It's
arguably worth considering if trashing Geithner is better in the long
run, even if it does play into the GOP's hands in the short run. That's
not my call, however.
