Geithner reassures China on dollar assets, gets laughed at

Our Treasury Secretary, not Secretary of State Clinton, is visiting China to calm Beijing's nerves about the once-mighty U.S. dollar. As of first quarter China holds a record $768 billion of U.S. Treasuries, and the Chinese are very worried about Washington's budget deficit and liberal monetary policy causing hyperinflation down the road.

After responding to a question about the security of U.S. assets, he was laughed at by the Peking University audience.

Nobody believes him, whether abroad or domestic. The reputation of the Treasury Department is on a downward spiral, and in turn, America's reputation.

President Obama has not elevated our global stature. His naivete and flawed policies have made America laughable.

No April Fool's: Another tax cheat Obama nominee

Poor President Obama, he's still trying so hard to find the right person for the Health and Human Services secretary job and just settled on Kathleen Sebelius, but now the Associated Press has a letter about her paying $7,000 in back taxes for 2005-2007. Did she use TurboTax too? Or maybe sought tax advice from Tim Geithner?

This is getting r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s.

Oh please, not another .gov website!

The Treasury Department announces FinancialStability.gov:

a website dedicated to bringing transparency and clarity to the immensely complex problems in the financial system and the President’s plans to address them.

If Geithner cannot explain it on TV, how can he explain it on a website? I'd rather all that money, time, and energy spent on creating this website used someplace else. Seriously, how many .gov sites do we need with this administration?!

Not good for Obama: Even the NYT mentions 'Katrina' and 'Obama' in the same sentence

An NYT op-ed calls it Obama's "Katrina moment." Not a good sign at all.

As much as author Frank Rich gives readers a good run-down of the events leading to the current circus (with clowns Tim Geithner, Jay Leno, Edward Liddy, Chris Dodd, and President Obama himself), he ultimately shows his liberal side:

As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all.

Yes, beware of the evil Republicans and their rejection of massive government spending to create jobs! Of course, the truth is we don't need more government jobs. We need jobs in the private sector, and President Obama and his Democrats' spending binge does not help businesses create jobs.

More so, conservatives and Republicans are not rooting for Obama's failure! We all want a strong and free America. What we want to see fail are Obama's over-the-top spending bills! History has shown that we simply cannot spend our way out of this recession. Congressional Republicans have made their stand against these spending bills, but they are still passed because of the Democrats' majority.

Top NM Democrat sentenced

Manny Aragon (D-NM) now is going to prison to serve a 67-month sentence for corruption. Don't expect the mainstream media to jump on this. Especially the fact the he's a Democrat. Oh well, if he had not been sentenced, maybe he could've gotten a position in Obama's cabinet. I hear that Geithner needs some help...

Stimulus bill allowed executive bonuses

The fury over AIG executive bonuses is now snowballing towards the White House, Congress, and all those in between who'd voted for the stimulus bill. Apparently the infamous stimulus allowed for executive bonuses that so many are ticked off about. And the man who's receiving most of the finger pointing? None other than Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who happens to be the top recipient of AIG political contribution (then Sen. Obama is #2). Sen. Dodd is being blamed for inserting the executive compensation clause into the stimulus bill, and believe it or not, he's blaming Obama for requesting it!

Oh goodie, in-fighting among top Democrats...

Anyone with a "D" next to their written names is staying as far away from this mess as possible. Nobody wants to be near Sen. Dodd, Tim Geithner, or even President Obama these days. What AIG CEO Edward Liddy went through recently is nothing compared to what's going to happen in the Hill.

There's been calls for Geithner's resignation. I'm sure these calls are going to turn into a chorus pretty soon.

More calls for Geithner's resignation

First, it was Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL). Now Rep. Derrell Issa (R-CA) also calling for the Treasury Secretary's resignation:

“As one of the chief architects of the AIG bailout, Secretary Geithner was in a position to do what any lender of the last resort would do – negotiate concessions from AIG. Secretary Geithner either didn’t know about the bonuses, and was grossly negligent, or he did know and failed to bring this to the President’s attention. Either way, the end result has been a significant waste of taxpayer dollars and he should take immediate responsibility and resign.”

I have the feeling that there will be more...

Nominees also withdraw in second-tier positions

Poor Timothy Geithner. The Treasury Secretary is working alone, day and night, in the fight to straighten out the economy. He has no deputy secretary, no under secretaries, and no deputy under secretaries.

Annette Nazareth, the expected pick for deputy secretary, has withdrawn her name. So has Caroline Atkinson, Geithner's choice for undersecretary for international affairs.

The U.S. Treasury Department is probably one of the most stressful work places today. But could it also be that people are reluctant to work for an admitted tax cheat?

Lean, mean, talented Obama?

President Obama demands passage of the stimulus package. Now he's on the offensive, pointing fingers at Republicans for the "same old distractions." The leftosphere (the left-leaning blogosphere) is falling in love with Obama all over again because of his partisanship:

I will note that compared with the solid but lacking passion speech that the President gave earlier in the day at the Department of Energy, this speech truly demonstrated the enormous talents of the President. This was the Obama that spoke from the heart, not the cool, calm, collected one we often see and hear. This speech had cadence, it had fire in the belly, it had soul. He spoke to me as an American and as a Democrat. This is the real deal. This is how politics is played. To win by getting things accomplished.

Oh, please: the "enormous talents" of the President?! Since January 20, I haven't really seen much talent from the President except his ability to deliver speeches (but we'd already known that since the campaign).

Does he have a talent for party leadership? Not from what we've seen with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, marching to the beat of her own tune in the House, completely ignoring Obama's message of bipartisanship.

Does he have a talent for reaching across the aisle? Certainly, but the failure of his negotiation skills was exposed when the House Republican members stood united to oppose the stimulus package.

Does he have a talent for picking good cabinet nominees? Look at what happened to Bill Richardson, Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Hilda Solis, and possibly more candidates.

The honeymoon is definitely over.

Obama cabinet nominees would've been better off with FairTax

How come nobody is talking about how ridiculously complicated and ineffective the U.S. tax code is in light of the tax troubles from Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner? Oh wait, Ken Hoagland is.

If we had gotten rid of the IRS and implemented the FairTax, then Senators wouldn't bother with vetting nominees on unpaid taxes and these hearings would've been more pleasant. Okay, less of a circus.

Geithner taints TurboTax's reputation

Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner is getting grilled by senators about his failure to pay taxes. He's admitted his neglectful wrongdoing, and at the same time caused Intuit, the maker of popular TurboTax software, to come out on the defensive.

Treasury Secretary nominee cannot explain missing taxes (now the economy is really screwed)

Obama would like Timothy Geithner to be the next Treasury Secretary, but how can he be effective if he cannot explain his failure to pay taxes? He does realize that as Treasury Secretary, he'll oversee the IRS? And we're supposed to trust this gentleman to hold our hands through the global economic crisis?

CHANGE in Obama's economic plan

Clintons Have A New Grip on Everything, now even in Obama's choice for economic posts: Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers as senior White House economics advisor, Christina Romer as chair of Council of Economic Advisors, and Peter Orszag as budget director. All these folks are apprentices of Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary.