Geithner Gets Slammed by Jim Demint (R-SC) Earlier Today
Take that!
Here’s the transcript – no video yet:
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who just finished testifying before Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) Senate Banking committee, said that “it’s not fair” that AIG counter-parties are getting paid 100 cents on the dollar by government bailout money but “if I felt there was a better way…I would support it.”
Geithner was responding to tart questioning by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) asking why, when others owed money by the troubled insurance giant are taking “haircuts,” the counter-parties (such as Goldman Sachs) are getting all the money owed to them.
“It is an incredibly difficult balance and it is very hard to know if we’re going to get the balance right,” Geithner said. AIG has received or been promised more than $150 billion in bailout money.
Geither got his anger up at one point, saying that, “I would not give a penny to AIG to protect counter-parties” if he didn’t have pay them to reduce the risk to pensions and other taxpayer-related funds that have done business with AIG and that are owed money by the company.
GOP Senator Hammers Geithner
11:29 A.M.: Geithner was hammered by a Republican senator decrying Treasury’s growing power over the American economy.
“This is not mission-creep,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “This is a stampede of any traditional understanding of constitutional boundaries.”
DeMint called Geithner the chief executive of the American economy. And he didn’t mean it in a good way.
DeMint complained that “we hear very little talk about exit strategies.” He asked Geithner how much of the $700 billion government bailout will be returned to Treasury’s general fund within five to six years.
“That’s hard to say right now,” Geithner said, deflecting: “If we are successful, that money will come back with substantial interest.”
Geithner added that the way the bailout was designed, for each $1 that is paid back, $1 can be lent back out.
“So it’s your understanding that you have $700 billion to use permanently as you see fit?” DeMint asked incredulously.
Geithner wouldn’t take the bait. “I’m not quite sure ‘permanently’ is right,” he said.
Rest of the questioning from other Republicans can be found here.
Later Geithner pulled a Clinton and asked what the definition of permanently is… j/k!
