Geithner to Congress: Don't Wimp Out Now

Wall Street Journal:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Washington is at risk of undercutting an already sluggish economic recovery if it fails to provide quick, additional support to business and individuals.

Mr. Geithner said the biggest challenge facing the economy right now was Washington paralysis. He urged Congress to take up the White House's recent proposals to give tax incentives to business and fund new infrastructure projects.

"If the government does nothing going forward, then the impact of policy in Washington will shift from supporting economic growth to hurting economic growth," Mr. Geithner said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal in his U.S. Treasury office, citing the example of countries who "shift too quickly to premature restraint" after a crisis, including the U.S. in the 1930s. MORE...

"The Real Reason Geithner Is Afraid of Elizabeth Warren"

John R. Talbott:

As reported on HuffPost last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed opposition to the possible nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a source with knowledge of Geithner's views.

One can assume that Geithner, being very close to the nation's biggest banks, is concerned that Warren, if chosen, will exercise her new policing and enforcement powers to restrict those abusive practices at our commercial banks that have been harmful to consumers and depositors.
(SNIP)

But this is not the only reason that Geithner is opposed to Warren's nomination. I believe Geithner sees the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as a threat to the very scheme he has utilized to date to hide bank losses, thus keeping the banks solvent and out of bankruptcy court and their existing management teams employed and well-paid. MORE...

Howie P.S.: Who is John R. Talbott?

"The video that will put Geithner behind bars" (with video)

Michael Whitney (The Smirking Chimp) with video (10:57):

You gotta see this! If this doesn't convince you that the Timothy Geithner knew about the securities shenanigans that were going on at Lehman, than I don't know what will.

Keep in mind, that Geithner ran Lehman through 3 "stress tests" prior to bankruptcy; all of which Lehman failed, and yet, nothing was done. Anton R. Valukas--the examiner who wrote the 2,200 page investigative-report which was released on Thursday-- has provided plenty of information detailing Lehman's “materially misleading” accounting and “actionable balance sheet manipulation.”

In other words, they cooked the books.

Taibbi: "Obama shifts power away from Geithner"

Matt Taibbi:

Senior administration officials say there is now broad consensus within the White House and the Treasury for the plan advanced by Volcker, who leads an outside economic advisory group for the president. At its heart, Volcker’s plan restricts banks from making speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. He has argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crisis. [Source]

Obviously this is good news, but what I find irritating about it is that the government only starts listening to its voters once the more corrupt option turns out to be untenable. They are making these moves out of necessity now, and that’s great — but it’s too bad they had to drive us right to the edge of the cliff before they thought about backing up.

There are rumors all over the place that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is about gone, and I’ve even heard some gossip indicating that Rahm Emanuel might have to start watching his back. Hey, whatever works. Obama, as is his nature I think, tried to take the fork in the road all year, making nice to his base while actually delivering to his money people, not realizing the two were perpetually in conflict. His failure to make a clear choice, or rather to make the right choice, is what has doomed him everywhere politically.

It will be interesting to see what comes next, whether this is just for show or not.

Howie P.S.: Another sign of change: "Plouffe stepping up role as adviser to White House."

Pro and Con: Obama, Geithner and Guantanamo

"What Geithner Got Right" (David Brooks-NY Times):

In retrospect, their performance during this trial was impressive.

Events also vindicate Geithner’s basic policy instincts. The criticism back then was that Geithner was neither bold nor visionary. He was too cautious, too much the insider and bureaucrat.

But this prudence was the key to his effectiveness. In interviews and testimony, Geithner uses the word “balance” a lot. He talks about finding the right balance point between competing priorities. He also talks like a historian who sees common tendencies in certain contexts, not a philosopher who seeks clear general principles that apply across contexts.

This mentality makes it hard for him to project bold conviction, but it makes him flexible in the face of specific problems. When financial confidence is cratering, Geithner concluded, government should generally be as aggressive as possible, as early as possible. At the same time, it should try not to do things that the market does better, like set prices or run companies.

Geithner’s path was a middling one, but it helped the country muddle toward recovery.

"Empty Promises: Obama Fails to Deliver on Guantanamo" (Scoop/Daily):

...when the president made his initial announcement, few questions were raised as to its viability. And why not? Here was a man who was single-handedly bringing back the concept of hope. He had already made it clear that a black man could enter the White House and be dashing and charming while he did it. When he promised it, millions of people believed he could do anything.

Eleven months in, those dreams haven’t quite materialized. No one is saying that the president has dropped the ball entirely, but many of his goals have yet to be realized. His health care plan lacks support. Racial tensions in America persist. Despite the appearance of an initially overwhelming popular mandate, life for Obama since the election, as Langston Hughes once wrote, “Ain’t been no crystal stair.”

Guantanamo is just another example of unrealistic goals being levied onto a president who, overall, has good intentions. And we, as a country, might face less disappointment if we stopped convincing Obama that that is who he is.

"Obama’s Failure to Close Guantánamo by January Deadline Is Disastrous":

... it remains unacceptable that these men should have to stay in Guantánamo while their petitions proceed to court, just as it remains unacceptable that cleared prisoners should languish at Guantánamo for one minute longer, let alone for months or possibly years beyond the deadline that has proven impossible for the administration to honor.

In an interview with Fox News that followed his announcement about Guantánamo, President Obama explained, "We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantánamo will be closed next year. I’m not going to set an exact date because a lot of this is also going to depend on cooperation from Congress."

That last line sums up the problem succinctly, and I can only hope that this cooperation will be forthcoming, although one major problem, clearly, is that Republicans will delight in thwarting the President still further. If it does not happen, however, the failure to close Guantánamo will cast a dark shadow on Obama’s presidency, and an even darker one on the prisoners - whether cleared men, or others still held without charge or trial – who will rightly conclude that, for them, there really is no justice in the United States.

"Rep. DeFazio: Fire "Timmy" Geithner" (with video)

Sam Stein (HuffPo) with video from MSNBC-ED Show (04:27):

Rep. Peter DeFazio called for the firing of President Barack Obama's top two economic aides on Wednesday for pursuing a recovery plan skewed too heavily towards Wall Street's favor.

The Oregon Democrat told MSNBC's Ed Schultz that he was dismayed with the administration's lack of focus on job creation and insisted it was time to dismiss both White House economic adviser Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary "Timmy Geithner."

"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent funds, we reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work. Rebuilding America's infrastructure is a tried and true way to put people back to work," said DeFazio.

"Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea," he added. "They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd."

Asked specifically whether Geithner should stay in his job, DeFazio replied: "No.

"Especially if you look back at the AIG scandal," he added, "and Goldman and others who got their bets paid off in full...with taxpayer money through AIG. We channeled the money through them. Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counter-party?' He would not answer that question."

DeFazio said that among he and others in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, there was a growing consensus that Geithner needed to be removed. He added that some lawmakers were "considering questions regarding him and other economic advisers" -- though a petition calling for the Treasury Secretary's removal had not been drafted, he said.

"[Obama] is being failed by his economic team," DeFazio concluded. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."

Neither the White House or the Treasury Department immediately returned a request for comment.

"Sen. Maria Cantwell on Geithner: Not Sure Why He Still Has a Job" (with video)

Josh Feit (Publicola):

Interviewed on MSNBC this morning, Sen. Maria Cantwell called Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s policies “appalling” and said she wasn’t sure why he still has a job.

Watch Cantwell here.

This is not the first time Cantwell has laid into Geithner.

Ari Melber and Noam Chomsky on Geithner (with video)

The Nation with video (03:03):

Washington Times columnist Amanda Carpenter suggests that there are no winners in the AIG saga and that President Obama, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have been the biggest losers. Ari Melber of The Nation agrees with Carpenter's assertion that the credibility of Obama has suffered but disagrees with Thomas Freidman's New York Times column and Carpenter when they suggest that the loss of Geithner would be bad news.

The Real News via Huffington Post, video (15:39):

Noam Chomsky: Plan is recycled Bush/Paulson. We need nationalization and steps towards democratization.

“The Zombie Ideas Have Won”–Paul Krugman on $1 Trillion Geithner Plan to Buy Toxic Bank Assets (with audio and video)

Democracy Now! with audio and video:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to unveil a plan today to purchase as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and other assets from banks. The government is reaching out to hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to help buy the toxic assets. The Obama administration has described the plan as a public-private partnership, but most of the actual money will be put up by the government. We speak with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today is unveiling the Obama administration’s plan to finance the purchase up to $1 trillion dollars in so-called toxic assets from banks and other ailing financial institutions.

The plan relies on private investors–namely hedge funds and private equity firms–to team up with the government to relieve banks of assets tied to loans and mortgage linked-securities. There have been virtually no buyers of these assets thus far because of their uncertain risk. As part of the program, the government plans to offer subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to coax private funds to form partnerships with the government to buy troubled assets from banks. This is intended to unclog the balance sheets of banks and allow them to resume normal lending.

Also, the Obama administration this week is expected to announce new proposals for financial regulation, executive pay, accounting standards and other issues ahead of the G20 summit in London on April 2nd.

The new economic proposals come as Congress is to begin debating the administration’s $3.6 trillion dollar budget proposal for next year.

Meanwhile, public outrage over the AIG bonus scandal has further undermined support for Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary. AIG is paying out over $165 million dollars in bonuses after receiving a $170 billion dollar taxpayer bailout. Geithner has been criticized in Congress and elsewhere for not doing more to block the AIG bonuses and his overall response to the financial crisis. In an interview broadcast last night on “60 Minutes,” President Obama expressed strong support for Geithner.

Geithner is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday about overhauling financial regulation.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel prize winning economist, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, and a columnist at the New York Times. His latest book is “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.” His column in today"s paper is headlined, “Financial Policy Despair” He joins us on the phone from New Jersey.

Barack Obama

"Hey Paul Krugman (A song, A Plea)" (video)

therockcookiebottom, video (01:54):

About the famous economist, Nobel prize winner and all around cool guy. Featuring my friend Madelyn, who is in an awesome band called The Muffin Brigade.

Howie P.S.: When the going gets tough, the tough go viral.

"Questions surround AIG scandal" (video)

MSNBC-Hardball, video (08:39).

Howie P.S.: Eugene Robinson and Roger Simon join Tweety to discuss "Who knew what when?"

Barack Obama

Paul Krugman: "Despair over financial policy"

Paul Krugman (NY Times op-ed):

The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won.

The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.

To this end the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad — I mean misunderstood — assets. This is supposed to lead to fair prices because the funds will engage in competitive bidding.

But it’s immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.

Or to put it another way, Treasury has decided that what we have is nothing but a confidence problem, which it proposes to cure by creating massive moral hazard.

This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

What an awful mess.

Update: Calculated Risk and Yves Smith have similar reactions.

Krugman (and Taibbi) on AIG, Obama (w/video)

Paul Krugman (NY Times op-ed):

Preliminary thoughts on the tax bill:

1. It’s not the way you should make policy — it’s clumsy, and it will punish some innocent parties while letting the most guilty off scot-free

2. But — there wasn’t much alternative at this point. And for that I blame the Obama people.

I’ll leave to others the question of who knew or should have known that the bonus firestorm was coming; but it’s part of a pattern. At every stage, Geithner et al have made it clear that they still have faith in the people who created the financial crisis — that they believe that all we have is a liquidity crisis that can be undone with a bit of financial engineering, that “governments do a bad job of running banks” (as opposed, presumably, to the wonderful job the private bankers have done), that financial bailouts and guarantees should come with no strings attached.

This was bad analysis, bad policy, and terrible politics. This administration, elected on the promise of change, has already managed, in an astonishingly short time, to create the impression that it’s owned by the wheeler-dealers. And that leaves it with no ability to counter crude populism.

Howie P.S. Matt Taibbi says pretty much the same thing in a long piece in The Rolling Stone. His language, however, is bit more colorful:

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

Howie P.P.S.: Just to make your final hours before the weekend complete, here's some video (03:36) of Timothy Geithner responding to a question about the AIG bonuses. This hearing came one week before Secretary Geithner says that he knew about the bonuses:

Barack Obama

“A glimpse into the cesspool”: Robert Scheer on AIG Bonuses, the “Backdoor Bailout”, and Why Obama Should Fire Geithner, Summers (with a/v)

Democracy Now! with video and audio:

Appearing on Capital Hill, AIG CEO Edward Liddy was repeatedly questioned over why the failed insurance giant is paying out over $165 million dollars in bonuses after it received a $170 billion dollar taxpayer bailout. While the Obama administration is expressing outrage, more details have come to light indicating that some officials have known about the bonuses for months. And meanwhile little attention has been paid to what might be a bigger scandal: AIG’s funneling of tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money to other banks.

We speak to veteran journalist and Truthdig editor Robert Scheer, author of the forthcoming “The Great American Stickup: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.”
The CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy, testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday and was repeatedly questioned over why the failed insurance giant is paying out over $165 million dollars in bonuses after it received a $170 billion dollar taxpayer bailout. While President Obama and other officials are expressing outrage over the bonuses, more details have come to light indicating that some officials have known about the bonuses for months.

During an exchange with Congressman Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, Liddy revealed the Federal Reserve had directly approved the AIG bonuses. During the hearing, AIG CEO Edward Liddy said he had already asked a few hundred AIG executives and employees to give back at least half of the extra pay but he refused to give details on who was keeping their bonuses. More than 70 AIG employees are receiving bonuses worth a million dollars or more.

Lawmakers grilled AIG’s Edward Liddy about the bonuses, but little attention was paid to what might be a bigger scandal. Earlier this week AIG revealed it had funneled tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money to other banks facing huge losses AIG had insured. Goldman Sachs received nearly $13 billion in what has been described as a backdoor bailout. Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley also received billions. So did several foreign banks including Société Générale of France, Deutsche Bank of Germany, Barclays of Britain and UBS of Switzerland.

Robert Scheer is a longtime journalist and editor of the political website Truthdig. He is the author of several books, his forthcoming one is called “The Great American Stickup: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.” His latest article on Truthdig is, “Perp Walks Instead of Bonuses.” He joins us from San Francisco.

Geithner won't say the "N" word on NPR (audio)

NPR-'Planet Money', audio (28:48):

If any single human being stands at the center of the global economic crisis, it's U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. This afternoon, Geithner took his hands off the intricate machinery long enough for an interview with Adam Davidson.

As you'll hear in the podcast, the pairing of titan and reporter made for quite a dance.

Bonus: Producer Katia Dunn describes the scene in Geithner's office, where an aide helped to keep the Treasury secretary on message.

H/t to Ben Smith, who shares the NPR producer's sketch of the scene:

a press aide "madly running around the room for the entire interview," "scribbling" and waving talking points, and "reaching more and more frantic levels of craziness."

"Liberals Press Obama," Sanders presses Geithner (with video)

WaPo:

As President Obama prepares to sign a $787 billion economic stimulus package today amid gales of Republican criticism of its cost, he is also facing quieter misgivings from liberal Democrats who say the bill does not go far enough -- and who are already looking ahead to future legislation that they hope will do more.

Liberal Democrats recognize the package's scale and accomplishment, and they have defended it against Republican attacks. But they also wonder whether Obama could have used the opportunity of a large congressional majority and a moment of economic emergency to pass a bigger package, with a better chance of boosting the economy and with more of his priorities intact.

As Obama moves on to issues such as health care and energy, liberals are debating how to ensure that the stimulus outcome does not define the outer boundaries of his agenda, so that future legislation is not limited, as the stimulus was, by the demands of centrist senators such as Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).

Some say Obama must aim higher next time, so that compromises produce a more satisfactory result. Some say he needs to take greater control of drafting legislation, instead of leaving it to Democratic congressional leaders, and needs to adopt a harder line with Republican legislators. And some say liberals and pro-Democratic interest groups such as labor unions must do a better job of pressuring moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats to back the president.

"We can't suddenly say, 'Change has come,' and just talk to one another and add more demands. We have to be out there explaining in the most elementary ways why something like universal health care is good for America," said Theda Skocpol, a Harvard University political scientist, addressing a conference of left-leaning groups in Washington last week.

She added: "It isn't going to happen in one week, and it isn't going to happen with one bill, with Olympia Snowe telling us what to do. It's going to be a long slog."

Plenty of Obama supporters are celebrating the package. They note that while it includes less social spending than what passed in the House, it represents billions of dollars in spending for Democratic priorities such as health, education and renewable energy.

"President Obama has been in office, what, 3 1/2 weeks? And to be able to pass a stimulus package of this size, I don't think anybody would have thought that possible six weeks ago," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The White House touts the package, too, noting that it is larger than any element of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. It is "the most major, sweeping, comprehensive legislation as relates to economic activity ever," Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said last week.

But as many liberals see it, the package is also notable for its omissions. They saw the bill as the launching of a new era of public investment, a sequel to the transformational presidencies of Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Obama swept into office with popular support, a sizable congressional advantage, and even conservative economists demanding government action. Obama supporters had envisioned big initiatives to rebuild schools, overhaul aging infrastructure and expand the safety net.

The bill includes just under $50 billion for roads, bridges, transit and rail, less than many mayors and governors had hoped -- though the White House did manage to slip in $8 billion for high-speed rail. It includes $70 billion for a tax fix that will help upper-middle-class earners and have little stimulative effect -- added at the request of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who voted against the bill anyway. The final deal dropped a $16 billion school-construction fund in the House version, $11 billion to cover the unemployed in Medicaid, and billions in aid to states.

And as big as it is, the final bill is smaller than what initially passed in the House and Senate, and it falls well short of filling the $2 trillion gap in demand that many economists foresee. With a third of the bill's cost devoted to tax cuts, the spending is $507 billion.

"The economic stimulus is like CPR for a patient with heart disease, and it will resuscitate the patient if we're lucky," said Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "But it won't provide the cure. What we need is a new New Deal."

Underlying the postmortem debate is whether it was unrealistic to expect the bill to serve as both a short-term stimulus and a long-term economic transformation, as Obama himself pitched it. As he took office, there was an assumption that the need for a big stimulus would allow Obama to spend on his priorities.

But it became clear that much of the package would be devoted to tax cuts and aid to states and laid-off workers, and that some longer-term spending would be hard to justify as stimulus. Obama acknowledged recently that the stimulus had not been the shining opportunity some had predicted. "This notion that somehow I came in here just ginned up to spend $800 billion, that wasn't -- that wasn't how I envisioned my presidency beginning," he said.

Some Democrats hope that it will prove easier to build public support for future legislation that will have a clearer focus than a stimulus package that was, by definition, a rushed grab bag. Hacker predicted that more Republicans could be persuaded to support Obama's health-care proposal, given that some Republican senators are already on the record supporting a different universal health-care plan. To lay the groundwork, he said, the president needs to include new health-care funding in his first budget, and grass-roots supporters need to pressure Republicans.

"You have to keep the movement alive," he said. "You have to keep the pressure on. Whether it's [Arlen] Specter or Snowe or Collins, they have to feel that their constituents are hurting."

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) said he was disappointed in the level of infrastructure funding in the package but hoped that a case for more investment could be made later. "The support for doing big things has to be built up over a long time," he said.

Still, some liberal Democrats worry that it might be difficult to pass additional ambitious legislation in the next year or two if the public perceives the stimulus package as having been Obama's chance to spend heavily -- even if much of the spending did not actually go toward his long-term agenda. They say the administration could have gotten more of what it wanted in this bill.

Robert Reich, who was President Bill Clinton's labor secretary, said the White House erred in letting congressional leaders write the bill, which resulted in the inclusion of several controversial elements that, while small, offered easy targets for Republicans.

"Had the administration been a little more vigilant, it might have been able to screen out some of the porklike bits that Republicans blew out of proportion to cast doubt on the bill," Reich said. "It's a delicate balance, but Obama probably overdid inclusiveness and conceded too much control."

Obama also erred, Reich said, in expecting more Republicans to support the bill and in granting from the outset some of the GOP's wishes for business tax cuts. "The strategic question that must be dominant in the White House now is: How many Republicans are really needed?" he said. "The public is still overwhelmingly with the president. White House advisers are probably telling him he doesn't need to court Republican support as ardently in the future, and shouldn't expect it. And he should never again offer them what they want before getting firm commitments from them."

Emanuel defended the White House approach. The plan all along, he said, was to lay out "broad strokes," let Congress write the bill and then, when it reached conference committee, "come in with a specific thing that would make this the president's plan." The White House included tax cuts from the outset because "we thought that, by giving some skin in the game first, it would get people off the positions they were trying to hold."

If the White House erred, Emanuel said, it was in emphasizing Obama's hope for bipartisanship, which allowed Republicans to crow when House GOP members all voted against it. "There was a time where . . . for about four days I don't think we were sharp about the benefits of this . . . where rather than jobs being the message, [we had] bipartisanship being the message," he said.

Emanuel said Obama's outreach will continue, but he hinted at tougher negotiations in the future. Obama, he said, "has an open hand, but he has a very firm handshake."

He acknowledged that the package was smaller than what Obama envisioned, particularly if one does not count the $70 billion tax fix -- which Emanuel called "the price for getting the deal done." But he said the final deal was "90 percent" of what Obama wanted.

"We clearly thought that economic activity needed more, but it was more important to get it done than argue about just that," he said. "At the end, it became a choice between passage or not."

Howie P.S.: Bernie Sanders turns up the heat (video-05:58) on Tim Geithner at a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee.

Barack Obama

"Axelrod Defends Handling of Bailout Plan" (video)

.
WaPo, video (04:27).

Howie P.S.: Axelrod talks about the roll-out of the "plan to rescue the nation's financial system."

H/t to Ari Melber.

Barack Obama

Looking back : Sanders Votes No on Geithner: “He’s More of a Part of the Problem…Than the Solution” (with audio and video)

Democracy Now, with audio and video:

We speak with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–VT) about his decision to vote against Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus plan, and why the $700 billion financial bailout amounts to “the greatest financial scandal in the history of this country.”

Barack Obama

Obama answers questions about Geithner (video)

MSNBC, video (01:21).

Barack Obama