Timothy Geithner Informs Obama He Will Stay As Treasury Secretary

WASHINGTON -- Timothy Geithner has told President Barack Obama that he will remain on the job as Treasury secretary, ending speculation he would leave the administration.

The Treasury Department released a statement Sunday saying Geithner had informed the president of his decision to remain in the administration.

Geithner is the only remaining top official on Obama's original economics team.

In late June, people close to Geithner said he was considering leaving after the debt limit was raised in August. They said he was tired of commuting to New York, where his son will be finishing up his last year in high school.

However, various administration officials including White House chief of staff William Daley had been lobbying Geithner to stay. Geithner has enjoyed a close working relationship with Obama.

"The president asked Secretary Geithner to stay on at Treasury and welcomes his decision," White House spokeman Jay Carney said in a statement.

Geithner informed the president Friday morning that he had decided to remain in the Cabinet.

That discussion took place before credit rating agency Standard & Poor's informed Treasury officials Friday afternoon that they planned to downgrade the government's credit rating from AAA to AA-plus.

Investors are watching nervously to see how financial markets react to that announcement which came late Friday after markets had closed.

In addition, Geithner and other finance ministers from the world's largest economies have been discussing what actions need to be taken to stabilize markets following renewed worries about Europe's debt problems.

A series of Obama's economic advisors have departed including Lawrence Summers, the first head of the president's National Economic Council, and two of the president's chief economic advisers, first Christina Romer and then Austan Goolsbee, who left this past week.

Obama has also had to replace his first budget director, Peter Orszag.

Before joining Obama's administration, Geithner served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a job that put him on the front lines of the central bank's efforts to battle the financial crisis and to get credit flowing more freely. He has a close working relationship with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

During the Clinton administration, Geithner held top positions at the Treasury Department dealing with international financial crises that occurred during that administration.

Comments

[Mary R McKeown]

01:46 PM on 08/14/2011

Why would we want him to stay? Watch "Inside job"a documentary narrated by Matt Damon on STARZ And try to figure out why He refused to be interviewed.God spare us from these people

[bernhart]

09:31 PM on 08/09/2011

I think Geithner has uited the Country; both liberals and Tea Partiers can't stand him.

[F4flyr]

06:23 PM on 08/10/2011

lol bern...you may be right...I think, by it's very nature, the secy/treas must remain aloof...too much influence by either party would/could be detrimental to clear thinking....I also like the fact that Tim's background is economics, but his childhood/young adulthood took him to the far east to live/work....he seems very knowledgable...I have no problem with the egghead factor.

[morgangunnar]

07:02 PM on 08/09/2011

I am staying obama I fiqure at this rate i will not have to pay any taxes! typical democract worthless

[F4flyr]

06:26 PM on 08/10/2011

so the 'typical democrat' is worthless, but you're staying with him?...I wish I had studied harder in Logic 101.

[jimtodd]

03:38 PM on 08/09/2011

If it wasn't Geithner, it would be a clone of Geithner. No diff

[stingjim]

02:53 PM on 08/09/2011

Well why shouldn't Geithner stay on board. He didn't pay his taxes before and now he doesn't have to. Talk about a Snake with a Forked tongue..

[Scojam]

11:44 AM on 08/09/2011

Geithner staying on the job is justification alone for the downgrade.

[InYourWorld]

11:15 AM on 08/09/2011

A more apt headline:

"Goldman Sachs has decided that Geithner needs to keep his job as Treasury Secretary"

[LisaCACO]

11:13 AM on 08/09/2011

yay.

[SirSlappy]

08:07 AM on 08/09/2011

Yes, let's keep the engineer of the last two years at the helm.

Obama's mediocrity knows no bounds.

[FOXYROSE]

07:52 AM on 08/09/2011

Oh, thank God, now I can sleep at night knowing the tax cheat is at the helm!

[LizM]

03:41 PM on 08/10/2011

Comments such as this, and countless others here, only succeed in betraying a rather stunning level of ignorance.

[Scojam]

12:26 AM on 08/12/2011

Good one. I'll use it sometime. Thanks Mrs Geithner

[sf omega man]

01:35 AM on 08/09/2011

The only reason Geithner must be staying.. is because he's thought of another way to put American taxpayers on the hook for writing another large blank check to the financiers, the speculators, and further bolster Executive bonus packages.

[LizM]

03:49 PM on 08/10/2011

Actually, Geithner has saved the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Why don't you know that?

If you do some simple research into what the treasury secretary has been doing, I am sure that you will be infinitely surprised by how successfully he managed the TARP and is competently dealing with the financial crisis, in general - domestically and internationally.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you get the bulk of your information that would allow you to produce comments like this?

[sf omega man]

05:12 PM on 08/10/2011

I get my information from the government. Not what the spin doctors and lapdog media reports.

So you believe their accounting then?

Was it just me that noticed the Great Recession that resulted from Timmy & Co's jolly bailout ride?

Was I the only one to see bailout money being used to satisfy bad bets 100 cents on the dollar for speculators that lost, pay for high level luxury retreats, and guarantee massive no-strings attached executive bonuses and golden parachutes?

Have we been repaid $16 TRILLION in bailout commitments that were made? (see my first note about their accounting.. they took

[Mary R McKeown]

01:54 PM on 08/14/2011

Dear LizM Please watch "Inside Jobs"On Starz It is a documentary narrated by Matt Damon It may help you see the other side Have a peaceful day Respectfully

[RR1981]

12:51 AM on 08/09/2011

Cannot remember when the posts on this site have been unanimous - left and right - this guy has to go.

Finally, something we can all agree on.

[LizM]

05:47 PM on 08/10/2011

Sometimes, there is ignorance in unanimity and no accounting for the facts. In the case of HuffPost comments, far more often than that.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people can think they know so much about someone when, in actuality, they unabashedly demonstrate that they know nothing at all.

What do you believe Geithner has done, specifically, to deserve such wrath from HuffPost commenters?

[RR1981]

08:53 PM on 08/10/2011

Geithner is essentially the CFO of the country, with the president as his CEO. While I hold the president responsible for the ongoing economic malaise and now the collapse in the stock market, his advisor that should be speaking directly to the rating agencies is Geithner. He stated on television, several times, that there would be no downgrade. In his conversations with all the rating agencies, he is responsible for understanding exactly the positions of their analysts. The deal was struck, the president signed it and the bottom falls out.

In the real world, CEO's and CFO's make those kinds of mistakes, and they are gone. Period.

[Jesvey]

11:52 PM on 08/08/2011

Very simple, Obama thinks Geithner is one of the smartest guys he knows (next to himself). Yet neither of them really have common sense, just book smarts. Huge difference.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

11:19 PM on 08/08/2011

Please tell the elf to leave. Can we get a housewife or a househusband to run things? Somebody who knows how to make both ends meet while taking care of the group.

[InYourWorld]

11:17 AM on 08/09/2011

That would great, but you are under the assumption that Geithner is not taking care of the group. Geithner is taking care of the group; that group just happens to be Wall Street, and Wall Street is ready to help fund his boss's (Obama) campaign in 2012.

[DrJohnnySkeptic]

08:58 PM on 08/08/2011

Kick him to the curb already. Things have been very bad and are just getting worse for as long as Geithner's been Treasury Secretary. He's a dunce who is doing this country no good.

Pres. Obama is using extremely bad judgement in this matter and is losing the support of voters because of that - including *this* one. I'm not feeling confident that he's the right person for the job anymore, considering that he has no foresight of just how bad the future is going to be.

He can't see the forest for the trees.

[Lorem Ipsum]

11:10 PM on 08/08/2011

X2.
Geithner's gotta go.

Obama has been done in by his picks for economic advisors, and after what we have been through, it's obvious he needs a new set of advisors.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

11:20 PM on 08/08/2011

Also fanned!

[SirSlappy]

08:08 AM on 08/09/2011

Weak|ing Obe can't get another Treasury Secreatary confirmed in the environment he allowed to form, so we get Timmy. God help us all.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

11:20 PM on 08/08/2011

Fanned!