Big Government:

Apparently, “any measurement” doesn’t include the unemployment rate, job growth, number of jobs, wage growth, hours worked, home foreclosures, rate of mortgage delinquencies, etc.

Which leads to the next question: what does ‘any measurement’ include? Surely there’s something that qualifies: for example, I imagine that segment of the sex worker industry that handles corporate lobbyists and union leadership cadres have been enjoying the recent influx of stimulus money. That’s good, right?

Feel free to come up with your own possible examples in comments. If you can’t, well: open thread.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

It looks like Saturday Night Live now has a completely different side of Tim Geithner to lampoon:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner blasted top U.S. financial regulators in an expletive-laced critique last Friday as frustration grows over the Obama administration’s faltering plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The proposed regulatory revamp is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities. But since it was unveiled in June, the plan has been criticized by the financial-services industry, as well as by financial regulators wary of encroachment on their turf.

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That’s Glenn Reynolds’ advice to anybody who feels obligated to attend a joint Treasury/HUD meeting called for July 28th to address the mortgage crisis. Given that the letter that was sent out is only ‘requesting’ attendance by the most charitable of interpretations (when two Cabinet Secretaries send you a letter about your presence at a meeting, you’re expected to show up), that should be pretty much the top mortgage servicers.

To summarize the article [with my own comments in brackets], the situation is this:

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This is just disgusting.

According to CongressDaily, Tim Geithner testified before “a joint House Agriculture and Financial Services hearing on the regulation of derivatives.”

Noting the rising unemployment, Geithner said what the economy “is going through is a very necessary and healthy adjustment as [Americans] go back to living within their means.” He added: “We do not have an economy that is growing again.”

It’s a “necessary and healthy adjustment”? Seriously? 9.5% unemployment is necessary and healthy how exactly?

How is “an economy that is [not] growing” necessary and healthy?

This is the guy so needed to get our economy going again that Congress overlooked his tax evasion.

And this is the man who, having never worked in the private sector, thinks you losing your job is “necessary and healthy.”

That’s Barack Obama’s America.

Most of us have had the experience at one point or another in our lives of getting stuck in a conversation with someone who is irrational and full of conspiracy theories. If you are particularly unfortunate, that person is a member of your family, your boss, a judge, or otherwise someone you can’t afford to just blow off. But pity poor Tim Geithner as it dawns on him that he has to answer questions from such a person - in this case, Congresswoman Maxine Waters - under oath, on camera, knowing that she is a powerful political ally of his boss (Geithner is not the first to have this experience). Geithner’s facial expressions in this video are just priceless:

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Rewarding failure is not just for Wall Street anymore.  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has done such an uninspiring job over the past few weeks that many in Congress have called for his head.  Much like Wall Street where Washington, D.C. is rewarding failure with big bonuses and massive multi-billion dollar bailouts, the Obama Administration is following the “rewarding failure” strategy by putting forth a proposal that would grant the Secretary of the Treasury the unprecedented power to nationalize private enterprise.  And I bet you thought those types of ideas went out the door when the Iron Curtain fell.  If you believed the era of big government was over then you have not been paying attention.

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Certainly one cannot say that Markos Moulitsas, the fellow that invented DailyKos.com, is the sage of the Democratic Party specifically or the left generally, but he does have a certain following as well as a high profile among activists if not Party regulars and political bosses. So when Kos begins Twittering that Sec. of the Treasury Tim Geithner is failing, this is not a good sign for Obama’s guy.

On Sunday, March 23, Kos wrote a Twitter posting stating “Geithner is starting to look like Obama’s Rumsfeld.”

To employ a saying: I know Donald Rumsfeld, Tim Geithner is no Donald Rumsfeld. Still, this could mark the beginning of the end of Tim Geithner as Obama’s Sec. of Treasury. His bad start when his tax cheating was revealed, compounded with his lackluster performances in press conferences, his claims that the next press conference will have all the answers at which time he tells us the same thing he’s already said, and, finally, his mishandling of the AIG bonuses incident is a veritable cornucopia of failure. For a man that is supposedly the smartest president we’ve had since Carter his choice of Geithner is not reassuring. And when even a kool aide drinker like Kos starts dissing Obama’s guy, well, who cannot suspect that the end is near?

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Today Treasury Secretary Geithner gave an interview to CNN in an attempt to head off further inquiries into the Democrats’ handling of the AIG mess. What he admits is stunning:

Velshi: One of the issues CNN and other news organizations have reported since late January, that AIG was going to pay about $450 million to about 400 employees of the AIG financial productions unit, which is really at the heart of AIG’s problems, an otherwise healthy company.

There is some dispute as to who knew when what. AIG’s CEO said that you might have known about this earlier than you did. When did you learn about this, and what did you learn?

Geithner: I was informed by my staff of the full scale of these specific things on Tuesday, March 10th. And as soon as I heard about the full scale of these things, we moved very actively to explore every possible avenue — legal avenue — to address this problem, to make sure that, again, the assistance we were providing was not going to unduly benefit these people.

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I don’t think that Jim DeMint necessarily has Barack Obama’s political fortunes in mind when he advises him to fire Tim Geithner, but it’s good advice anyway.

In Washington D.C., it’s not hard to predict what usually happens to a politician in Geithner’s place. Several Republicans have called for him to resign; more will. The press will begin to ask many Democrats what they think. Several of them are clearly not far from calling for a resignation as well; one will before long. That will be the signal that Geithner is near the end of the road.

Obama still has a very ambitious agenda that depends on his Treasury Secretary. There’s health care reform, the budget, cap-and-trade, a resolution for GM and Chrysler, and more efforts to stabilize banks. Administration officials are still saying that Congress is likely to need to approve more money for that bailout. That ship has probably already sailed, but at the very least it’s impossible to imagine Geithner getting it approved. The sooner Obama cuts his losses, the better.

Tim Geithner should probably start packing his stuff. Now. Because what we have in the article in today’s Washington Post called “How the Fed Failed to Tell Obama About The Bonuses” is nothing more or less than an attempt to load up Mr. Geithner with unique responsibility for the AIG bonus fiasco, set him ablaze, and send him drifting out to sea.

When one cuts through all the hooey, this is the narrative that the White House and its media accomplices would like for you to believe: the risk-averse bureaucrats in the Fed made a unilateral decision to allow AIG to award bonuses to the guys who nearly brought AIG down. They did so without consulting with the White House, or much of anyone else. They did so without realizing that it would be a political disaster. The guy at the Fed who did this was Tim Geithner, who, by the way, is now at Treasury and still screwing up royally although The One retains complete confidence in him.

This is nonsense on its face.

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A friend informs me that all but 8 House Democrats just voted against a measure to require the Obama administration to do everything legally possible to compel AIG to return to the taxpayers the controversial bonuses approved by Secretary Geithner. The bill is described here by its sponsor, Congressman Paulsen:

This is the text of the bill:

Section 1: The Secretary of the Treasury shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, implement a plan within the next two weeks to recoup or stay the payment of AIG bonuses.

Section 2: No additional funds may be provided to AIG until the bonuses are returned.

Section 3: Any future bonus payments, of any kind, by TARP fund recipients who have not within two weeks of enactment of the bill repaid the government in full, must be approved in advance by Treasury.

Section 4: Any future contractual obligations to make bonus payments of any kind entered into by TARP fund recipients who have not within two weeks of enactment of the bill repaid the government in full must be approved in advance by Treasury.

House GOP Whip Cantor has a list of the Democrats who voted to protect AIG here. Why would they block a bill that requires the Treasury to do precisely what they claim to want?

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Congressman Kevin McCarthy when he addressed the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blogger briefing. I asked McCarthy how House Democrats view Tim Geithner - based on his conversations with his colleagues across the aisle.

McCarthy said that Geithner was in ‘dire straits’ - that he had blown his first impression, came across as the ‘man with the plan’ who had none, and now was getting mocked by Saturday Night Live. The AIG mess would only worsen his situation. As McCarthy pointed out, Geithner needs a strong support team to have a chance to turn things around - but seems unlikely to get one anytime soon. According to McCarthy, that seems to be the view of House Democrats as well.

Is Geithner in ‘dire straits?’ Well, when a manager gets a vote of confidence from the owner, it’s only a matter of time before he’s out:

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Tim Geithner is heading to the Hill this evening to brief House Democrats on the administration’s bank rescue plans. This report seems to come rather suddenly; you can’t help but wonder why it’s suddenly important for Geithner to come to the Hill on just a few hours notice:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will brief Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday night on efforts to stabilize the financial sector, party aides said.

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Given the complete collapse in the Stock Market - and Wall Street’s obvious vote of ‘no confidence’ in the new administration, it’s funny to read the plan that Barack Obama laid out for himself just two months ago:

…but the markets are obviously a slightly different situation. Right now, given the sensitivities of the market, I’ve got to pay some attention to market psychology because part of what we have right now is such a loss of trust in both the marketplace and in government that restoring that confidence, restoring that trust is going to be very important. I’m not going to part of watching the crawl at the bottom of an interview. What I will be doing is making sure that I’m communicating with key market participants on a regular basis, again, to explain to them what exactly our plans are and to solicit from them good ideas.

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I’ve been quite surprised at the number of very strange things Treasury Secretary Geithner has said recently. You get a distinct sense that the man either isn’t doing his own thinking, or else he’s not strong enough to resist being told what to say by the White House.

The latest one was yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee. He said, get this, “We don’t believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the use and production of energy sources” that contribute to global warming.

What’s a significant subsidy? Apparently that means being allowed to produce oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. So what’s the response? Add a 13% tax on the revenue of a narrow class of producers that should raise $5 billion or so over the next 10 years.

Why is he even wasting his time with this? His job is to find anywhere from one to two trillion dollars every year for the remainder of his time in office.

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While some may have thought that the Obama tax plan would sail through Congress relatively unopposed, the reality is turning out to be somewhat different:

President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on high earners and greenhouse gas polluters met fierce opposition Tuesday from congressional Republicans and also a few Democrats. “I would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good,” Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said of Obama’s call to limit high-income taxpayers’ itemized deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest.

When the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says nyet to the plan–fallen figure though Charlie Rangel is–you have to think that there are problems. (On this issue, be sure to check out Ben Domenech’s piece on what he justly calls “The War on Philanthropy.) More problems with Democratic defections are detailed here.

Other problems may stem from this passage:

. . . the Treasury secretary acknowledged that consumers could face higher electric bills because Obama would impose fees on greenhouse gas producers, including power plants that burn fossil fuels, by auctioning off carbon pollution permits. The goal is to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming while raising a projected $646 billion over 10 years.

“Now, if people don’t change how they use energy, then they will face higher costs for energy,” Geithner said.

“Nice saving account you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.” Effectively, the Tim Geithner is threatening people with an energy tax. Is this part of the supposed tax cut for 95% of the population?

National Journal has the story:

Just as the dust was settling last week from the exits of Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., whipped up the tumult again. By pulling out of consideration for Commerce secretary, a post previously abandoned by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), Gregg became the Obama administration’s fourth high-level dropout so far.

But while this administration has set a turnover record for an incoming Cabinet, it’s hardly the first to run into problems with its nominees. Bill Clinton leads among recent presidents with a total of six major nominee dropouts over the course of his presidency, followed by George W. Bush and his Cabinet’s two withdrawals. Three previous presidents — George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter — each slipped once. All but Reagan had at least one kink in their first-term Cabinet selection process, with Clinton accepting three withdrawals.

I’m not sure this is a fair accounting of the process; it counts Tim Geithner as a successful nomination - which is rather generous. If Geithner were considered a failed nominee, Obama would be just one more Commerce Secretary Nominee away from Clinton’s record, and could still break it with a Daschle-like nomination at HHS.

It involves him getting thrown into the gladiatorial pit:

Last week Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister and Mr. Geithner’s host for the weekend, gave a tart review of the Obama administration’s stimulus in a local newspaper here.

“If the problem is an excess of debt, the cure is not adding more debt, whether that debt is public or private,” he wrote in the Corriere della Sera. Italy is one of the most indebted countries in Europe. Its debt surpasses its annual gross domestic product.

The national debt of the United States, by contrast, was about 40 percent of G.D.P. at the end of 2008, but Moody’s expects that to rise to 60 percent by 2010 as a result of the recession and spending tied to the federal bailout and stimulus programs.

On Saturday, Mr. Tremonti also spoke disdainfully of the “Buy America” provision in the stimulus plan, which covers iron, steel and manufactured goods, as a political slogan. He and other ministers emphasized the importance of keeping the American economy free of protectionism.

The president of the World Bank, Robert B. Zoellick, said he told ministers this weekend how crucial it was to keep the world economy open and to avoid the protectionist policy errors of the 1930s. “The Buy American provision is very dangerous,” he said.

HopeAndChange unites the world.

Feel free to gape in awe and wonderment over how an appointment process that once looked like it was going so right, is now going so wrong:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, under intensifying pressure from Wall Street and Congress to complete his financial-rescue plan, is being handicapped by a dearth of staff experts critical to the effort.

Geithner’s strategy of forging a partnership with private investors to buy toxic assets would benefit from aides steeped in law and finance to thresh out the competing interests in the plan. Yet the administration has yet to nominate people for any of the Treasury’s financial posts as the White House seeks to avoid Senate confirmation battles.

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Obama wanted the smartest man in the room. He hired Tim Geithner. Turns out Geither really isn’t all that special. Jake Tapper has captured reaction to Geithner’s Tuesday talk and discovers the Democrats on Capitol Hill are not enthused.

“We need more details from Treasury on how exactly it plans to remove bad assets while protecting the taxpayer,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told the New York Times. “We have zombie banks that are weighed down because their liabilities exceed their assets. Without a precise mechanism for addressing toxic assets, it will be difficult to increase lending.”

When even John Kerry thinks you are light on details, you’ve got problems.

A’s surround themselves with A’s. B’s surround themselves with C’s.