Obama Stands By Geithner, Says "The Buck Stops With Me"

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Asked today whether Treasury Secretary Geithner or other members of his administration are at fault for allowing the AIG bonuses or not knowing enough about them, President Obama had a simple answer: "The buck stops with me."

"Ultimately I'm responsible, I'm the president of the United States," he said. "We've got a big mess that we're having to clean up. Nobody here drafted those contracts. Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in. We are responsible, though. The buck stops with me. And my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again."

Mr. Obama made the comments during an impromptu press conference on the White House lawn before he boarded Marine One to begin his two-day trip to California. He called for legislation that would create a FDIC-entity to financial institutions like AIG. (Read more about that here>.)

The president was specifically asked about calls for Geithner to resign from his post over the matter.

"I have complete confidence in Tim Geithner and my entire economic team," Mr. Obama said. "Tim Geithner didn't draft these contracts with AIG."

Mr. Obama then compared Geithner's challenge to that of the first secretary of the Treasury.

"There has never been a secretary of the treasury, except maybe Alexander Hamilton, right after the Revolutionary War, who's had to deal with the multiplicity of issues that Secretary Geithner is having to deal with all at the same time," he said.

Mr. Obama added: "He is doing so with intelligence and diligence. Nobody's working harder than this guy. You know, he is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand."

[nolies74621]

There is a huge..huge difference between bieng a community organizer in Chicago and bieng The President of the United States. I believe America is finally waking up to realize this fact.

[nolies74621]

Your veiled attempts at applying the characteristics of the Bush administration onto the Obama administration is failing abysmally, and is quite transparent.
Posted by Solarrays247 at 8:11 PM : Mar 18, 2009

Hey there are no characteristic comparisons to make between Bush and Obama. The new administration has America well on it's way to financial ruin. They seem clueless as how to get out of the banking and housing crisis because Geithner has not come up with a single idea as of how to fix them. The National Deficit has more than doubled in 59 days. Believe me the current bunch in the White House need no comparison, they are doing a bang up job ruining things on thier own.

[nolies74621]

Barney "McCarthy Franks. Name names Mr. Liddy. He should speak with his fellow Congresman Dodd and about that sneaky little exemption in the stimulus bill. Name name Mr Dodd, who wrote the exemtion into the bill.

[brianbwb-2009]

So refreshing to hear a president say "the buck stops with me". It certainly beats recent gems like "we had bad intel"

Now we can only hope that the buck does indeed stop, that we can find a way to exert more oversight and control over our vital infrastructure components, the "privatize everything" crowd has been shown to be the fraudsters they all are, now let us take control of that which we pay for.

[tiredofthebs]

And to think they wanna make Sec. Geithner the fall guy here. Clearly the new administration needs to make better decisions.

[nearl451]

Of course during the past eight years if the President said the moon was made of GREEN CHEESE and you disagreed, you were unAmerican.

[nearl451]

One thing is for sure: Obama will be criticized for what he says.
Obama Foxites
"The buck stops here": "Yeah it's your fault"
"It's Geitners fault": "Yeah you appointed him"
"Don't blame me, I inherited the problem": "Don't blame Bush for anything"
"We are addressing the issue": "You aren't addressing the right issue or intheright way or ...."
"We will let AIG/banks fail": "WHAT that stock markets gonna crash!!!"
"We're askingfor bonuses back": "YOULL STIFLE THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST"
"We're not gonna ask for bonuses back": " WHAT?? You let them off SCOTT FREE"

No matter what you do, there is no winning over imbeciles.

[shurch4truth]

The ultra conservative Republicans are scared to death that the Obama plan will work.

They are doing everything they can to make it fail and don't seem to care about what it does to people to destroy economic progress.

If you follow Rush you are following a person who uses you to make himself rich. You will never get anything out of being his follower, just a lot of hot air.

[____One_American___]

The White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, apparently finds it necessary to launch attacks against anyone who publicly questions the policies of the Obama administration. America was witness to this kind of character assassination by the Obama campaign against Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and any Conservative who openly questioned Obama - and Gibbs played a role in this. Is this what the Obama administration considers "the most open and accessible administration in American history"? Is this what the Obama administration considers "change" and "hope"? Rather than responding to policy questions and criticisms with reasoned, rational thinking - Americans are subjected to sarcastic and childish name calling?

And what about the feigned outrage at the AIG CEO's who were award bonuses only because Democrat Chris Dodd made sure that a loophole was included in the stimulus bill - which Obama signed - and both received money for their campaigns. Isn't this, at the very least, a conflict of interest? And what about Democrat Senator Barney Frank's feigned outrage - if AIG?s retention bonuses are a problem, why aren?t Freddie Mac?s?

All Americans deserve better than what has all appearances of a corrupt, deceitful government.

[nearl451]

Hey,get your daily GOP talking points from Fox or Rush?

I see you did.