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March 18, 2009 1:26 PM

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

Posted by Kevin Hechtkopf
(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

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."
Tags:
barack obama ,
tim geithner ,
economy ,
AIG
Topics:
Economy
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Add a Comment See all 45 Comments
by nolies74621 March 19, 2009 7:45 AM EDT
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.
Reply to this comment
by nolies74621 March 19, 2009 7:42 AM EDT
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.
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by nolies74621 March 19, 2009 2:33 AM EDT
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.
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by brianbwb-2009 March 19, 2009 2:14 AM EDT
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.
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by tiredofthebs March 19, 2009 12:24 AM EDT
And to think they wanna make Sec. Geithner the fall guy here. Clearly the new administration needs to make better decisions.
Reply to this comment
by Solarrays247 March 18, 2009 11:11 PM EDT
Posted by ____One_American___ at 7:41 PM : Mar 18, 2009

Maybe, if you keep repeating yourself enough, maybe, just maybe, you just might begin to believe yourself, but frankly, this type of rhetoric is getting rather tiresome.

You lost...get over it...and try being a true American patriot right now. If that 's too much to ask, and you find it beyond your capabilities to contribute anything constructive, and truthful, well, then have at it. There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism, but outright lies diminishes you more than it does Obama.

Your veiled attempts at applying the characteristics of the Bush administration onto the Obama administration is failing abysmally, and is quite transparent.
Reply to this comment
by nearl451 March 18, 2009 10:49 PM EDT
Of course during the past eight years if the President said the moon was made of GREEN CHEESE and you disagreed, you were unAmerican.
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by nearl451 March 18, 2009 10:46 PM EDT
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.
Reply to this comment
by shurch4truth March 18, 2009 10:43 PM EDT
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.
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by ____One_American___ March 18, 2009 10:41 PM EDT
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.
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by nearl451 March 18, 2009 10:29 PM EDT
Hey,get your daily GOP talking points from Fox or Rush?

I see you did.
Reply to this comment
by Solarrays247 March 18, 2009 8:58 PM EDT
President Obama had a simple answer: "The buck stops with me."

I never thought I would live to see the day that any politician in this country would own up to his/her responsibility!

For eight years I repeatedly asked for Bush, Cheney or anybody else to own up. I am sure many people were growing tired of me repeatedly stating, "the buck stops at the top!"

Thank you, President Obama for having the class to at least admit that the buck does indeed stop at the top! Now, lets git 'er done!!
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by realnews12 March 18, 2009 8:53 PM EDT
I hope the press keeps asking the tough questions in California where he ducked off to try and hide.

Posted by thgdriver at 1:18 PM : Mar 18, 2009

Hide? HIDE? He held an unscripted, off-the-cuff townhall meeting in California, answering audience questions with hundreds of people in attendance. It was just broadcast live on TV. Yet you accuse him of having "ducked off to try and hide"? What a liar you are.
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by StevensDot March 18, 2009 8:49 PM EDT
a Billion is a 1000 million - we have 180 of these Billions invested in AIG. I am outraged over these bonus payments but I think we would rather all have the 180,000 millions back and not blow it over 168 million.

Google a trillion
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by mooksie1 March 18, 2009 8:02 PM EDT
The incompetent gruesome twosome, Obama and Geithner, are at it again! They apparently knew about these AIG bonuses long ago but did nothing until it all came to light. To appoint an incompetent and a tax cheat like Geithner to be the Secretary of the Treasury does not speak well of Obama's judgment. Geithner ought to resign or be fired before he does more harm to the faltering aconomy. Obama is conducting his "charm offensive" in California on the Leno show and in town-hall meetings to recoup some of his slipping poll numbers. I say good riddance to both Obama and Geithner. They are both incompetents.
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by dhutch88 March 18, 2009 7:17 PM EDT
I love that Dodd put a provision making sure the bonuses at AIG got paid. Guess who recieved the most money in donations from AIG. Oh you guessed it Dodd and Obama I believe recieved the 4th highest amount. Nice job DEMS way to steal from the tax payers.
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by homespunlady March 18, 2009 6:28 PM EDT
Posted by red1952 at 2:35 PM : Mar 18, 2009

It's NOT worth blaming Either party.
BLAME does NOT FIX the problems - and it's beyond obvious that there are plenty of near catastrophic problems that need to be addressed.

That said the sheer unmitigated GALL embodied in taking out-sized amounts of TAXPAYER MONEY and calling it an "entitlement" bonus from what I saw in the hearings enraged BOTH of the major political parties.
(as well as pointing out how gullible they both can be)

This nation needs to GROW UP, get a better education, learn responsibility and start creating REAL value again before there is NO nation Left to protect.
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by noloyalisti March 18, 2009 6:04 PM EDT
Does the right wing know just how stupid they sound to blame Obama for the utter destruction of the global economic economy by greedy, unregulated right wing corporations?

Keep up the good work, NO ONE believes what you say except the mindless ditto heads and their ilk.
Reply to this comment
by homespunlady March 18, 2009 5:55 PM EDT
Now that I've finally slowed down sputtering and spitting nails Here's a few observations.

So, who else watched todays hearings and thought of the Watergate Hearings?

AIG needs to be broken up and it's assets liquidated to retrieve the taxpayer's interest.

Then regulations should be put in place that this or any other private corporation cannot use "too big to fail" as BLACKMAIL for self-enrichment.

Sounds like that is the direction Obama wants to go. Whether this nation finally does so is still questionable.

Mostly all I heard today is EVERYONE saying they "didn't know" until this past week or weekend.

If that was true then WHO BUYS a company without looking at the 10K statement. Here it is:

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/76/76115/123108_10K_final.pdf

The biggest DEFENSE was that this was such a "small" amount...
most people would have to work a lifetime or 2 or 10 to get anywhere near the top "bonus" amount so the "ignore it because there are other incompetencies MUCH bigger" is a rather poor defense made by very clueless people.

That kind of reasoning would have a person being told to ignore the bullet hole in their body because they had to SAVE the prize race-horse of the millionaire down the road from falling into a hole and breaking it's leg.

All in all diversionary and it allowed the (PRIVATELY OWNED) FED to skate by and slip in a stock market manipulation to make things LOOK better temporarily.

(at least until our treasury funds have to REPAY those t-bills to the BANKERS that OWN the FED - then INFLATION here we come)

Time to put in that garden.
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by red1952 March 18, 2009 5:35 PM EDT
It's really funny to see these republicans so outraged at these bonuses. What a bunch of hypocrites.
"It was the Bush administration and GOPers in Congress who were insisting that caps on executive compensation not be part of the legislation."
"Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told CBS news that: "It should be up to the board of directors of a private corporation to set the compensation of an executive; it shouldn't be Congress's role."
"House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, "outraged" over AIG's issuance of $165 million in bonuses, said he was not in favor of "the federal government be[ing] able to set salaries across the board," when the issue of executive compensation arose in September 2008."
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, likewise dismayed over AIG's bonuses this past week, said back in early February that while he was "appalled" at some of the perks executives had received, he did want "the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do."
There's a lot of blame to go around but the repubs pointing fingers is just too funny for words.
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