DeFazio to Obama: Fire "Timmy" Geithner and Larry Summers

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

In comments made on MSNBC's Ed Schultz Show, Congressman Peter DeFazio wants President Obama to fire his top two economic advisers. At Huffington Post, Sam Stein has the story:

"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent [TARP] funds, we reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work. Rebuilding America's infrastructure is a tried and true way to put people back to work," said DeFazio.

"Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea," he added. "They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd." ...

"[Obama] is being failed by his economic team," DeFazio concluded. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."

Neither the White House or the Treasury Department immediately returned a request for comment.

Here's the video:

Discuss.

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    I'm not convinced attacking (or removing) Summers and Geithner is the way to go. I am for more stimulus funds, whether recycled TARP funds or some other funds. I am for reregulating Wall Street, especially ending "too big to fail" institutions. Brad DeLong, in a recent speech at Reed (here), suggested capping Wall Street firm capitalization at $50 billion per firm. I'm for something like that. I'm not sure how to get loans flowing from our local banks.

    I'd prefer to see DeFazio focus on moving needed economic legislation through the Congress, and coordinating with Senator Merkley, who is working on many of these banking issue, rather than calling for personnel shake ups.

  • Geoffrey Ludt (unverified)
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    "We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street"

    Maybe?

    Didn't you guys run on helping Main Street NOT Wall Street?

    WTF? Has DeFazio been drinking the Tea Party Kool Aid?

    Geoff

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    However you feel about the calls for Summers’ & Geithner’s heads, the fact is that while the House & Senate committees are now into the minutia of financial reform legislation, the effects of the economic meltdown are getting worse and worse – unless, of course, you work on Wall Street.

    While Goldman Sachs and their ilk are returning to record levels of bonuses and compensation thanks to the mint they’re making betting the money they’re borrowing from the Fed for next to nothing, an astonishing one in seven home loans are now overdue or in foreclosure and unemployment continue to climb.

    Back when the first stimulus package was being debated, many progressive economists argued that it was much too small to do the job, and that the result would spell disaster on both the economic and political fronts: economic because it would fall short of doing the job, political because the Administration and Democrats in Congress would be accused of spending trillions in a failed effort that bailed out Wall Street but left Main Street in rubble. So while the bank profits roll in, the public perceives the official response as mucking out the stables after the horse has left the proverbial barn.

    Ultimately, calling for scapegoats is not the point – and, ironically, in the case of banking reform so far the Administration has been stronger certainly than what’s come out of the House banking committee; the Senate bill, which is moving through Dodd’s committee on which Jeff Merkley sits and where he has been a strong voice for real reforms, makes some key improvements. But now is the time to push for far bolder action than any have yet been willing to take.

    In that sense, I'm very supportive of DeFazio's "Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of 2009," which would place a securities transaction tax on trades of stocks, options and swaps.

  • Zarathustra (unverified)
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    And, of course, there's no addressing all those that said they were rotten choices in the first place.

    The list is getting really long, too long to repeat, but this is another of those, "were we psychic, lucky, or know something you don't"? That's going to be one hell of a list by the time the cycle is over. Which, in American politics, means that most of it doesn't exist? Seems to be the hope.

    Oh, that's the hope we were waiting for! And I've got 17 cents in my pocket. No doubt trickle down from the banking bail-out. I guess there really is hope and change!

  • rw (unverified)
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    So let me understand something here: calling for the heads of those who gave soft blows to their peers is the only thing our local guy is able to do until it's done? You mean to tell me he can't work alongside Merkely AND call "Enough" on the guys we all said should NOT be in there were it not for the sequelae to Rovian/Bush-Cheney politics, that of refusing to work with anyone but your own?....

    I suspect this legislator is well capable of working on more than one issue or task in a day, don't you? WE do it, and we aren't even as important! :)....

    Meanwhile, Kari: in the sandbox we learned to f**** up someone's given name so as to show the depth of our pettish displeasure and disrespect for them. My mother perfected "forgetting" the names of people she did not like. I could always tell if she approved of a boy I dated. If he had a name, he was fine.

    "Timmy"? REally? Oy.

  • Peri Brown (unverified)
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    Does anyone care that most TARP funds seem to be paid back by banks simply jacking up the interest rate on existing loans? My brother-in-law just declared Chapter 7. He had 4 lines of credit. Three changed the interest rates, two changed the fee structure, and the one decent one closed their credit business entirely. The "three" are scheduled to pay TARP funds back this year. It's a small business, in the first five years of life, and that was the final nail in the coffin.

    Was that the intent of the leg.? Keep the banks from failing at all costs, but everyone else be damned? And they have overcompensated. Literally and figuratively. Those "three" will be paying nice Xmas bonuses, as my sister tells her kids why Xmas will be lean this year. My brother-in-law will be trying to fill the gap on his resume and begging for a job, well chastised that "size counts". Conservatives talk about taxes killing entrepreneurial spirit. That really doesn't square with reality on the ground.

    Yeah, 'thustra. We can hope for change. Or despair. About the only choices on the table.

  • rw (unverified)
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    Prescience proven comes with a bitter taste in the throat.

  • Fred (unverified)
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    "..or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd."

    Yes, paying down the deficit is just plain Absurd. I hope Progressives make that a campaign promise.

    We can't afford to pay down the deficit. We need more government programs designed to "help" people.

  • rw (unverified)
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    Hey Fred: you are so right! Glad you know it too that the people who are the feet on the corp[orate]us are starving actively - it's truly not fair that the guys at the top are skating through again, while the people who make the run run are losing everything.

    It's refreshing to be on the same page with you!

  • Fred (unverified)
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    RW - What would Hugo Chavez do?

    These corps need to be taken over and taken down. Amerikans need to be freed from Corporate dominance. The moneys from these corps can be funneled to the deficit and spread equally amoung the workers.

    Viva Chavez!

  • Stephen Amy (unverified)
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    How about Islam Siddiqui, who is a conventional-farming, industry lobbyist, as the new choice as U.S. Ag Trade Rep?

    How about Pizarchik, industry-friendly "regulator", who does not know enough about mountaintop-removal to give an opinion, even though he "regulated" mines in neighboring Pennsylvania, as the new director of the Office of Surface Mining?

    (Just a couple more examples of Obama letting industry write the regulations, along with Summers & Geithner overseeing economic policy).

    "Don't blame me- I voted for Cynthia McKinney".

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    Meanwhile, Kari: in the sandbox we learned to f**** up someone's given name so as to show the depth of our pettish displeasure and disrespect for them. My mother perfected "forgetting" the names of people she did not like. I could always tell if she approved of a boy I dated. If he had a name, he was fine.

    "Timmy"? REally? Oy.

    RW, I'm not sure if you're calling me out on "Timmy", but I wasn't the one who used the diminutive. Watch the video.

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    A note on the idea of "paying down the deficit" via repaid or unspent TARP funds: As Dean Baker notes this morning, it doesn't compute:

    The Congressional Budget Office expected the bulk of the TARP money to be repaid, therefore it was never scored as spending. Only the expected losses were scored as spending. Therefore, the Obama administration cannot use unallocated or repaid TARP funds to pay down the debt.
  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    ""[Obama] is being failed by his economic team," DeFazio concluded. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans.""

    I have had a lot of respect for Peter DeFazio for a long time and still do, but I think he is wrong on this. Obama is the rhetorical wizard for the people behind the curtain running the show. Summers and Geithner are their agents in the White House and Obama knows it. If Obama really cared about the economy and its effect on the people he wouldn't have surrounded himself with people who were instrumental in creating the chaos that now prevails in the first place.

    Same on health care. Obama's handlers' first choice for health secretary was Tom Daschle who was in bed with the health insurance industry.

    Despite this point, thank you to Congressman DeFazio for being one of the few with the guts to say what needs to be said in Congress. Too bad he is in a minority despite his party being the majority.

  • Zarathustra (unverified)
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    So, we didn't have to wait long for conservatives to bring up how we're going to pay for their deficit. Bill Clinton left the deficit in manageable shape, and Shrub ran it up. Pay it back off of taxing the highest incomes and defense contractors, if you want to be fiscally responsible all of the sudden.

    You know, there is such a thing as Libertarian progressives. Not exactly a fan of any government, but willing to set a lot more of it up. This seems a lot like the early days of the new deal. If that history is a guide, they're history.

  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    To see ourselves as others see us: The real reason Obama is not making much progress

  • Lou Fleming (unverified)
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    Way to go Congressman! Best thing I have heard from a Democrat in months. Send the two of them home so they can go back to fantasizing about/praying to their one true god, Allen Greenspan.

  • rw (unverified)
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    Kari - Egad I've not even have dignified that pesky kindergarten name thingie. :)

  • steve (unverified)
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    Geithner has actually done a good job, which was to shore up the rat infested substructure of American capitalism. There is no longer a worry that the entire structure will come crashing down. The next phase will be to get the systems running properly, mainly capital flow to (mostly small) business. This will increase employment. This next phase will require different skills and, perhaps, different people. We'll see soon how this plays out. The "kick Geithner" sentiment is more than a little unfair.

  • Thank you Peter DeFazio! (unverified)
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    If only we had more Democrats with vision and a spine like Peter.

  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    It just doesn't make sense to have key players in the deregulation of banks - Rubin, Summers, Geithner, etc. - that led to the current crisis playing key roles in White House policy. What else can it be but politics above all else in the Obama administration? Same goes for the 9/11 trial in New York.

  • Emmit Goldman (unverified)
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    What happened to all those geniuses who were telling us that Obama was "just playing chess" and was "ten moves ahead"? That's why he chose all those regressives to be in his government, wasn't it?

    You Dems are as delusional as the Reich.

  • Saint Drogo (unverified)
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    No answer yet, Emmit. Its been repeatedly asked, were those who saw this and "fill in the blank from a growing list of issues" lucky, psychic, or know something you don't?

    No time to answer. Have to post one telling us the latest sell-out is a cunning move.

    Excuuuuse, me, but back in March I wrote: Oh, wonderful. We can look forward to another four years of posters thinking that everyone in government is screwing up and wondering why "our guys" are doing what they are. No one will consider a). they're not screwing up; this is the plan, b). they're not "our guys" or "their guys", they are the power behind the throne's guys and they are all the same, c). they aren't even bothering to make it up anymore; things just disappear. The amendment was renditioned out of the bill on grounds of national security.

    Earlier, at the election, I predicted the spin would be incredible. Of course that drew immediate snark from Carla. Hasn't drawn a thought from anyone else. I guess when you know a priori what your position will be, you don't have to do a lot of waiting and seeing. That's what you tell people like us to stall for time.

    What's sadder is all those that knew that, get this and will vote Dem next time, so as to not "waste their vote".

    I've never been a big believer in "good coming from evil". In my experience it seems more evil usually comes from evil. Yeah, we can hope for change. Hell, after Geithner and Summers I'll be grateful for any loose change. But 43 was evil, and that banality directly produced the Dem victory. They are spawn of the most banal evil this country has ever dealt with. And so, they act like it.

    That said, there seems to be some real solidity developing in the economy, from where I sit. About six weeks on. Cause?

  • Kurt Chapman (unverified)
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    hey, y'all put a known tax cheat into the position and NOW want to wonder why things are going poorly?

  • Urban Planning Overlord (unverified)
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    "They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd."

    It's nice that Peter DeFazio agrees with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that "deficits don't matter." Maybe he figures the U.S. can just default on all that debt we're issuing.

    Perhaps DeFazio should run for Governor - since the state has to run a balanced budget he would be protected from his own economic illiteracy.

  • jack pearson (unverified)
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    <h2>In the USA, millionssssssssss of middle class individuals have brokerage accounts where they buy & sell stocks. A Tobin Tax in the USA is a MAIN STREET TAX. It's not a Wall Street Tax. If you want to tax firms like Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley, then tax their profits directly. Taxing middle income non-wallstreet folks who have brokerage accounts isn't a way to get back at Wall Street.</h2>

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