Happy Hour Roundup: Cantor Agrees With Boehner That Geithner Is “On Thin Ice”
* Are Republicans getting closer to calling for Tim Geithner to get the push over the AIG mess?
I asked GOP House minority whip Eric Cantor’s office whether he agrees with GOP House leader John Boehner’s claim earlier today that Geithner is “on thin ice.”
Cantor spokesperson Brad Dayspring emailed over this:
“The administration appears to be in complete disarray, and no one inside the White House and the Treasury seems to know who did what when. The lack of oversight by the administration is stunning, and I think it’s safe to say that most Members of Congress have serious questions about the job performance of the Secretary.”
That is basically an endorsment of Boehner’s assertion — GOP leadership is clearly discussing calling for Geithner’s head.
* A funny line from David Kurtz about AIG CEO Edward Liddy’s appearance before Congress today:
If being paid a $1 a year as CEO shields Liddy from serious criticism and being held accountable, then let’s pay the guy a real salary. It’d be worth a million a year of taxpayer money not to have to watch congressmen pandering to Liddy’s sanctimony.
* HuffPo’s Sam Stein details the behind-the-scenes and public infighting over who killed that provision that could have reined in lavish bonuses.
* Newt Gingrich test-drives a new phrase: The “Bush-Obama-Geithner policy of bailing out failing companies.”
* A new Gallup poll finds that a solid majority is outraged by those bonuses. Here’s the really striking number: An astonishing 67% of Republicans want government intervention to recoup them — demonstrating, I think, how weak the grip of free market orthodoxy is, particularly in the face of garish corporate excesses.
* And former McCain spokesperson Michael Goldfarb keeps on cheerleading for Sarah Palin’s wolf-killing. Whatever turns you on, Mike, whatever turns you on…
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yeah, that Republican number is pretty surprising. Amazing how fast a little economic fear will make folks crawl to the government for help.
So who replaces Geithner if he’s forced out? You want to see a market crash – wait until that happens.
Michael Goldfarb is a gruesome, gruesome tool. He’s like a rich, dweeby Ivy League fratboy trying (really, really) hard to be macho.
Really, Republicans are coordinating their talking points? You don’t say…
An astonishing 67% of Republicans want government intervention to recoup them — demonstrating, I think, how weak the grip of free market orthodoxy is, particularly in the face of garish corporate excesses.
Sure, the Republicans absolutely love government intervention on their terms. They were the ones who wanted the government to have control over my uterus. They wanted more control over broadcasting, over the internet – over everything they’d like to control.
Do I have to remind everyone that if you look up “hypocrite” in the dictionary, the one-word definition is “Republican”?
And excuse me very much, Greg, but who the hell do Boehner and Cantor think they are? They have no control over who runs the Treasury. They can’t force Obama to change secretaries.
Boehner and Cantor are in the minority, Greg, remember?
This is a little rich coming from the Senate Republicans, who voted a few weeks ago for $3 Trillion in tax cuts, most of which would accrue to people like these AIG multi-millionaires.
Not to mention, if they’re so angry about this rank injustice, why do they keep voting to tax these bonuses at a lower rate than the taxes normal people pay on their salary?
And hey, how do they feel about creating a new tax bracket for people earning, say, 750,000 and up a year?
Sure, they’re happy to go after a Democratic Treasury Secretary. Wow, Republicans say Democrats suck. Dog bites man.
But they’re still shoveling taxpayer money to these guys, not just protecting them, but also coming up with new schemes to make them even richer! Isn’t that a little more relevant? Isn’t it a little man-bites-dog to rail against the people you want to give billions in tax cuts to?
But they’re still shoveling taxpayer money to these guys, not just protecting them, but also coming up with new schemes to make them even richer! Isn’t that a little more relevant? Isn’t it a little man-bites-dog to rail against the people you want to give billions in tax cuts to?
See, the MSM, Congress and the blogs are responsible for seeing this issue like this.
THey aren’t just shovelling our money at these banks and firms cause they asked for it. THe present crisis was triggered by the Bush Administration -Poulson let Lehman go under and the entire economic structure for the whole world slumped and everything started going down.
You really want to see the largest re-insurance company in the whole world go under? I don’t. They are so entwined with every other aspect of our economic system that there is no way that AIG can fail without taking down a whole hell of a lot of the rest that is still operational.
*sigh*
Obama isn’t gleefully giving your money away – he’s desperately trying to save what’s left of what the Republicans did – which was ruin everything.