OK, yesterday Presdent Obama said he had “complete confidence” in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
In the past when a POTUS says that precise phrase about a member of his cabinet, it’s only a matter of time before the cabinet person suddenly needs to “spend more time with his family” :rolleyes: and resigns. I’ve noticed that in the past two presidencies, you needed a stopwatch to measure that time interval.
Here’s a perfect opportunity for Obama to show whether he’s really different than other presidents, or he’s just a typical president without the 100% white anglo-saxon ancestry.
So, how long do you Dopers think Geithner will remain in office?
I have to been following the details of this administration enough to form an opinion (pesky job, pesky life). The AIG bonuses thing was handled in a politically boneheaded way, IMNSHO. If there are no other such train wrecks, my guess is Geithner will be around for months if not years. Since I haven’t been paying attention, for all I know Geithner is typing his resignation letter as I’m posting this - and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.
(Mods - not sure if this is GD or IMHO material. Please move as you see fit.)
No, I don’t think he’s going anywhere. He’s not popular because of the tax thing and it’s true that the AIG bonuses haven’t been handled well, but as much as those matters offend people, neither those is an issue of much consequence. Given the importance of Geithner’s position at this point in time it would probably scare the crap out of people if Obama said he’d lost confidence in him after two months.
I guess I didn’t answer this directly, so I’ll say I expect him to be in office for at least a few years unless the administration decides to take its recovery plans in a totally different direction.
I find the calls for his summary dismissal to be a symptom of lynch mob mentality. Well we gotta hang someone and this guy is handy.
Most disturbing are some of the screeds that “we need someone in the job who wasn’t part of the institutions that created the mess” (paraphrasing). It is that mentality that made the mistake of going into Iraq such a compounded catastrophe: the insistence on getting rid of all the Baathists. This is not the time to put in people who do not know where the keys are kept and where the fuse boxes are.
Geithner is PR tone deaf to be sure. The argument that these payments are not really “bonuses” so much as the way these highly compensated workers salaries get paid and that losing them right now will cost the taxpayers much much more than these few million may actually be a logical one. But having just expected that it would pass without notice was foolish and the circumstances since have been handled with equal cloddishness on his part. Defending the decision has now become toxic even it was a logical one and the damage will be substantial. But poor handling of the situation aside he is no Brownie and he will come out the other side as the media ADD kicks in and moves onto another news cycle next week.
It’s funny. I thought this was a partisan issue, especially with a recent CNN.com editorial (sorry, I can’t seem to find it right now) from a conservative figure - as soon as he called Geithner part of Obama’s “competence problems,” I knew what his beliefs were going in to the article.
However, take a look at the results so far from this poll on the Daily Kos. It sort of surprised me. Is this truly reflective of the public at large’s view, or is it more pronounced among political types?
This is exactly the argument Obama gave in his interview with Leno last night. He specifically wants to break the practice in Washington of throwing a fall guy to the mob whenever things get hot; as long as Geithner does his job competently, he’s unlikely to be removed.
Geitner came into office with the stink of unpaid taxes. Strike one. He can’t fill the positions under him. Strike two. He wasn’t aware of AIG’s bonuses which were discussed with members of Congress last year. Strike three. The smartest man in the economic/political world can’t put together a team to work on a problem that required he hit the ground running. He’s out.
Another vote for Geithner staying around for the long haul. The fact is that the US political system with its snail-like confirmation process is simply not suited to handling a crisis in the first few months of a new administration. And Geithner is dealing with an enormously complicated set of problems without a proper staff and under an insane amount of media scrutiny. And frankly in the grand scheme of things the AIG bonuses are a tiny issue which it was entirely appropriate for him to ignore. Geithner’s top priority should be the banking system: carrying out the “stress tests” ,figuring out which banks, if any, to nationalize and which toxic assets to purchase. His other enormous challenge is to co-ordinate a global macroeconomic stimulus. In substantive terms the AIG bonuses would rank very low on the list. It’s become an important political issue but that will pass and short-term politics wasn’t what he was hired for.
It’s been two months. Too early to tell. High expectations in that amount of time is patently ridiculous for the amount of money involved. Most people can’t balance their finances in one month, let alone trillions in a few months. It took years to create this mess, it will take the same to reverse. Slow down people.
I have the sense that Mr Obama is likely to be as loyal to his minions as was Mr Bush, and I think Mr Geithner will have his job for Mr Obama’s full term. It’s true the government screwed up the AIG bonuses. But the government has and always will be ineffective at preventing waste. In the current panic to “fix” the economy, billions (trillions) of dollars are being released with good intent. Mr Obama and the Congress will learn the hard way that lots of money means lots of waste, lots of corruption and lots of unintended/unforeseen consequences.
I consider the blunder of squandering money on AIG without even the most basic control on how that money would be spent insided AIG to be a result of of Mr Obama’s naivete and part of his education. It’s easy to ridicule and criticize your predecessor for inadequately regulating; it’s quite another to have to figure how to actually regulate when you are in charge. I think Mr Obama’s personality is robust enough to suck it up, consider himself responsible, and not blame Mr Geithner.
On the “complete confidence” front, you missed something. It’s fine for a boss to have “complete” confidence. It only becomes dangerous when the confidence level exceeds 100%. So if Mr Obama’s confidence level in Mr Geithner reaches 110%–or higher–well then I agree; the writing is on the wall. It does not help, obviously, that Mr Geithner’s personal track record of shadiness with obligation to fellow taxpayers is not much different from the unconcern AIG and its employees had. But since Congress just finished overlooking that, it’s unlikely to be a hot issue now.
Man, in any other administration Geithner should be cleaning out his desk right now.
BTW, I lived up to my Dopername in my OP :smack: I have NOT been following the details enough to make an informed opinion. Not - as in negative. I still make judgments, but I’m the first to admit they are snap judgments.
I’m beginning to think that the pressure to get rid of Geithner may be more than the White House can bear within a few months, or even weeks. When every single question from the media is about “X”, it’s time for “X” to go. Problem is, I’m usually wrong about this sort of thing. I thought UN Ambassador Andrew Young and Agriculture Secretary James Watt would each survive the bone-headed statements that cost them their jobs. Both of them had plenty of bone-headed statements before, I just didn’t see the last straw.
If nothing else, the economic team needs to get their hearing adjusted, so they are no longer “tone-deaf” to the reaction from the vast majority of voters when bozos who owe more in taxes than most American workers make in two years are nominated for high office, and when screw-ups who crashed the economy are given more money in bonuses than the annual budget of most US cities. And the bonus money comes from our taxes, dammit! If AIG had gone bankrupt, that bonus money would not be there. At best the employees would have to get in line at bankruptcy court behind, well, pretty much everyone else.
Man, it’s fun to watch the talking points. Right now, I think the three big ones are ‘The Democrats are responsible for the bonuses’, ‘Geithner should be fired’ and ‘Obama is facing a populist revolt’.
Is anyone aside from the Rush Limbaughs of the world saying Obama’s facing a populist revolt?
I mean, the guy was just put into power by the most populist revolt there is; an election. Tim Geithner might be getting bad press (and I’d bet most people cannot name a single specific thing wrong with him) but so far Obama’s popularity remains high. I’d say he has to start worrying about the polls in mid-2012.
Not to turn this into another Obama vs. Bush thread, but Bush kept several appointees for much longer in the face of more negative reactions. Rumsfeld is the most obvious example.
I haven’t been following this particular controversy in detail, but based on things Obama has said in the past, I don’t think it’s about loyalty with him. It’s more along the lines of that he picked his appointees because he thought they were the best people available for the jobs, and making a couple mistakes in the first few months isn’t a reason to throw them overboard; they’re still the best people for the job, even though they’re not perfect.
Has he given any interviews on the subject? It’d be better than sticking words in his mouth.
edit: Well, I see one’s already been posted, but here’s another.
So if Mr Obama’s confidence level in Mr Geithner reaches 110%–or higher–well then I agree; the writing is on the wall. It does not help, obviously, that Mr Geithner’s personal track record of shadiness with obligation to fellow taxpayers is not much different from the unconcern AIG and its employees had. But since Congress just finished overlooking that, it’s unlikely to be a hot issue now.