Ever wonder how the U.S. Treasury Secretary gets through some of the most economically stressful times this country has seen in a while -- does he go for long runs? Sleep two hours a night?

Timothy Geithner has been in the job less than a year, and came in after the economy had slumped into recession. Now unemployment is approaching 10 percent, he's had to navigate through an economic stimulus package, and on top of all that the weakness of the U.S. dollar has other countries questioning whether it should still be the reserve currency.

Enough problems, we imagine, to give anyone a big giant headache and more than a few sleepless nights.

So what does Geithner do under the weight of it all?

"I've been in the middle of this for quite a long time," he said in an interview at the Reuters Washington Summit on Tuesday. (Remember, before this job, Geithner was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank).

His general approach, Geithner said, is to "focus on trying to make sure you're making the best of a bunch of bad choices."

And to make sure "you are helping the president make sensible decisions," he said.

"I think the basic imperative in these things is just to make sure people understand that we're not going to debate when there's a problem anymore, we're not going to like hope it takes care of itself, we're going to commit to fix it," Geithner said. "And we're going to do what it takes to fix it."

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Geithner at Reuters Washington Summit)

President Barack Obama courts autoworkers in Ohio and union leaders in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

Obama meets workers at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and later addresses a convention of the AFL-CIO labor federation in Pittsburgh.

Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq for visits with U.S. troops and Iraqi leaders.

Back in Washington, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefs lawmakers on the war in Afghanistan.

And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is still pushing to finalize his panel’s proposal for reforming the U.S. healthcare system this week.

A USA Today poll published on Tuesday showed Americans split over healthcare reform, even after Obama’s pitch to a joint session of Congress last week. The poll said 50 percent favored reform and 47 percent opposed it.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday Obama is committed to getting the U.S. fiscal house in order once the economy is on a solid footing.

He said Obama could do that without breaking his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on people earning less than $250,000 per year.

“We can get our fiscal house in order, we can go back as a country to a point where we’re living within our means, without violating that fiscal commitment,” Geithner told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

Geithner said the U.S. economy was not yet in a real recovery.

“We define recovery, and the president will define a recovery, as people back to work, people able to get a job again, business investing again,” he said. “And we are not at the point where we can say that yet.”

He said the administration was eager to unwind the huge investments it made in U.S. banks, automakers and other businesses as it struggled to prevent economic collapse.

“The government had to do some deeply offensive things to help contain the damage,” he said. “And we will get out of that as quickly as we can.”

“We’re not going to keep a penny in the financial system or in the U.S. economy longer than we think is absolutely necessary,” Geithner said, but he acknowledged it would take more than a year.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer told CNN that Geithner was to blame for the problem because he did not act as an effective regulator of New York’s financial institutions while he was head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

“The New York Fed is what got us to where we are because they permitted this leverage,” Spitzer said. “Tim Geithner, when he was up for secretary of the Treasury, said, ‘I have never been a regulator.’ He didn’t understand what his job was as president of the New York Fed.”

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Presidential candidate Obama addresses autoworkers Feb. 13, 2008, in Wisconsin); Reuters/Hyungwon Kang (Protesters pester Geithner at a congressional hearing Sept. 10, 2009)

U.S. Senator Jim Bunning asked a Treasury Department official the question other lawmakers had avoided at a banking committee hearing on Wednesday — so, what about that profanity-laced tirade by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner?

Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, on hand to testify about credit rating agencies, played down the drama of Geithner’s widely reported “conversation” on Friday with regulators who were refusing to toe the Obama administration’s financial reform line.

Barr said he attended the meeting in question, where sources said Geithner used expletives in urging cooperation from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others.

“The secretary made clear the regulators are free to defend their own agency prerogatives. They’re independent agencies … We had a long discussion about macro-prudential versus micro-prudential regulation, the kind of conversation that we have had with them on many occasions,” Barr said.
But Bunning, a Kentucky Republican known for his bluntness, wasn’t buying this bland description of a closed-door session that sources described as tense and uncomfortable.
Under pressure from Bunning, Barr replied, “I won’t characterize the exact verbiage that was used … senator, you will not be surprised to learn that in Treasury, as occassionally up on the Hill, there’s some colorful language.”

Said Bunning, “I’ve been accused of that. I understand.”

Topics of the day today: more healthcare and U.S.-Chinese relations

President Barack Obama speaks at the beginning of a two-day U.S.-Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, then top Chinese and U.S. officials will work on developing a new framework for U.S.-Chinese relations.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner are among the high-level officials taking part in the meeting. The duo wrote an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal talking about the need for working with China.

Congress is still working on healthcare reform, although Obama has eased up on his August deadline for working out a deal. Democratic lawmakers will be working on ironing out differences within their own party. Obama has learned that although both the House and the Senate have big Democratic majorities, that’s not always enough to get legislation passed.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, a key player in bipartisan Senate Finance Committee negotiations on healthcare, said on Sunday Senate Democrats don’t have the votes to pass healthcare reform without Republican support and would not predict whether the panel would be able to produce a bill before the August recess.

But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said he is confident a bill will pass by the end of the year.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Carey Gillam (Healthcare reform supporters rally in Overland Park, Kansas)

Now that Congress is back from its week-long Memorial Day recess, it’s time for the U.S. top brass to hit the road. President Barack Obama heads to the Middle East today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Honduras, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in China and U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke promises a visit to Pakistan this week.

Closer to home, Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor starts making the rounds on Capitol Hill in advance of her confirmation hearings. Meantime, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal faces questions at his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Armed Services Committee today. McChrystal’s nominated to be the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

This might be an opportune time for travel. The Ipsos/Reuters poll indicates global consumer confidence is stabilizing, after dropping for 18 months.

Obama’s Mideast trip is in part a fulfillment of a campaign promise to deliver a speech to the Islamic world from a major Muslim capital early in his presidency. He’ll make the speech in Cairo on Thursday, where T-shirt vendors are ready with a version that reads “Obama: New Tutankhamon of the World.” His first stop in the region will be Saudi Arabia, where the discussion is expected to focus on oil prices.

Sometimes it’s not the distance traveled but what you say when you get there. That may be true for Dick Cheney, who last month emerged from his undisclosed location for a high-profile confrontation with Obama — they weren’t in the same room but Cheney started talking moments after Obama finished — over how to handle the threat of terrorism and its aftermath. The former vice president went to the National Press Club last night to offer support for gay marriage, regulated on a state-by-state basis. He has done this before, but doing it now puts him to the left of Obama, who favors civil unions for gay couples.

For more Reuters political stories, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Amr Dalsh (Souvenir shop shows the latest on June 1 in Cairo)

What's in U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's wallet? Not much.

While testifying in front of a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill Thursday Geithner was shown a $50 Billion Zimbabwean bank note (rendered worthless by Zimbabwe's hyperinflation) by U.S. Representative John Culberson (R- TX) and asked if he had ever seen one himself. Geithner immediately pulled a piece of Zimbabwean currency out of his own pocket and showed it off to the committee. At the next break in the hearing I approached Geithner and asked how he happened to have a piece of foreign currency in his pocket. His response was "I often have some foreign currency in my wallet. Want to see?" He pulled a very thin and mostly empty wallet from his pocket.

Amongst many empty slots in the thin weathered leather wallet there could be seen three credit or debit cards with Visa and Mastercard logos (all inserted into the wallet upside down so that the card issuers could not be seen) and an old and yellowed looking identification card of indeterminate origin.

From inside the wallet Geithner extracted a small pile of receipts and paper including a New York City MTA farecard, pointing out that there were European Euros tucked amongst the paper.

Notably not seen in the U.S. Treasury Secretary's wallet? Any U.S. dollars.

- Photo Credits:  Jim Bourg/Reuters  (U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner puts a piece of foreign currency back after showing off the contents of his wallet to a photographer during a break in his congressional testimony in Washington, May 21, 2009.)

It’s a busy day at the White House, with waves of lawmakers moving in for talks with President Barack Obama, in between a press statement and before a commencement address.

Wave One: House Democratic leaders — Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel of New York and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, both of California — come to discuss health care.

Wave Two: Senate leaders from both parties — Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, both Democrats, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama — talk with the president about a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Between the waves, there’s a media statement, a briefing on the economy and a read-out from Vice President Joe Biden on how the stimulus plan is going.

At the end of the day, Obama heads for Phoenix, where he delivers the commencement address at Arizona State University. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also hits the commencement trail — it’s the season — by giving the address to New York University’s graduates at Yankee Stadium.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner misses the mortar-board circuit, instead addressing a meeting of the Independent Community Bankers of America, and when he speaks, the markets tend to listen.

With all this high-level talking on tap, the morning television shows took a different tack. Donald Trump and Miss California — against gay marriage but occasionally snapped topless, and keeping her tiara — were everywhere, as were stories about actress Farrah Fawcett, now ill with terminal cancer.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Kevin LaMarque (President Obama and aide Reggie Love enter Oval Office, May 8, 2009)

President Barack Obama gets a bit of a reprieve from the Secret Service shield on the presidential use of Internet technologies and will answer questions submitted online from the public at 11:30 a.m. today.

The White House Web site has been taking questions in categories that include education, home ownership and jobs.

Activists for legalizing marijuana managed to flood the financial stability category with queries such as: “Has the administration given any thought to legalizing marijuana, as a cash crop to fuel the economy?” Let’s see if that one gets picked for a presidential response.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is yet again at a congressional hearing. Wonder if he’s getting comfortable in that witness chair and at deflecting those probing questions from lawmakers (helpful hint: AIG bonuses bad).

Today’s testimony is before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on financial regulation reform and Geithner is expected to offer up some ideas.

While the Treasury honcho faces a storm of questions on the Hill, there’s real weather happening in the upper Midwest.

The Red River Valley region of North Dakota has been dealing with serious flooding from heavy rains.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/stringer (Marijuana plants at greenhouse in Mexico’s Baja California)

On Monday, Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman wrote that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan was not only doomed to fail, it was, in fact, filling him with despair.

But life can't be all despair for the Princeton prof. Earlier this month, an enterprising songwriter named Jonathan Mann wrote a catchy little diddy wondering why the New York Times columnist wasn't in the corner office at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tell us what you think. Should Obama dump Tim and put in Paul?

It’s all about toxic assets today.

The Obama administration has come up with a plan to deal with those loans that are so underwater you need a deep-sea diving outfit to find them (kind of like my NCAA bracket, but that’s another sad story).

The plan is for the government to partner with the private sector — including hedge funds (remember their role in bringing the markets down?) — and provide an antidote for the  toxicity of the bad loans.

Christina Romer, a White House economic adviser, in her explanation of the program managed to mix a sports metaphor with a coin toss (again we’re back to the NCAA bracket).

“This is really tails both the government and the private sector win, heads both the government and the private sector lose,” Romer said on ABC’s “Good Morning America”  show. “We both are going to have, as the saying goes, skin in the game.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner gets a chance to comfort jittery financial markets by providing details of the plan this morning. Let’s see if his performance improves over last time, when he layed out an outline and the markets tumbled.

And then again there’s always the birthday cake analogy. “It’s kind of like a horrible birthday cake with fire, the candles are burning all over it, we’re trying to blow out the candles in every direction,” Austan Goolsbee, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers told Reuters Financial Television.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage 

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Geithner at White House event earlier this month), Reuters/stringer Shanghai (panda eats birthday cake at zoo in China)