Friday, November 20, 2009

BARACK OBAMA

Democrat DeFazio Says It's Time for Geithner to Go

I have a feeling a lot of folks on the right will have a strange new respect for, or at least temporary agreement with, Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio:

Asked if Geithner should stay in his job, DeFazio said no.

"Especially if you look back at the AIG scandal and Goldman [Sachs] and others who got their bets paid off in full," he said. "Instead of saying 'you bet, you lost,' they got paid back in full through AIG. We channeled the money through them."

"Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counterparty?' He said 'I will not answer that question," added DeFazio.

DeFazio said the Congressional Progressive Caucus is considering asking President Obama to remove Geithner.

The president is "being failed by his economic team," he said. "Their total orientation is Wall Street, not Main Street."

Okay, so DeFazio's argument is that the Obama economic plan is failing because Geithner is too oriented towards Wall Street, while those on the right would argue that it's failing because we're not spending money wisely, we're contemplating new taxes on energy, we're contemplating new costs to employers for health insurance, we're contemplating new taxes on income and investment, we're spending money like it's water, etc. But perhaps both sides can agree that there's got to be somebody out there who can do the Treasury job better than Geithner can.

11/20 09:04 AMShare