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)

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.”

Tom Daschle doesn’t want to be a distraction. Nancy Killefer doesn’t want to be a distraction. Timothy Geithner has already been a distraction.

What these three high-profile nominees to President Obama’s White House have in common, besides not wanting to be distractions, is that they apparently don’t know how to do their taxes. Daschle, the former senator and Obama’s choice for health secretary, and Killefer, a former assistant Treasury secretary and nominee to oversee the government’s budget, have withdrawn their nominations because of tax indiscretions. Geithner has been confirmed but his path to the top of Treasury was also marred by tax troubles that some fear may come back to haunt him.

Besides begging the question why do smart people not know how to do their taxes, it also throws a shadow over Obama’s quest to have a fast, smooth transition to power.

The real question is whether nominees should withdraw their nominations when tax troubles surface. If the transgression isn’t enough to throw them in jail, why should they lose the opportunity to serve in the White House?

Not likely. But Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson might want to dust off his resume because if the Academy of Management is right, he’s probably not going to be getting many fat offers to serve on corporate boards after leaving government in January.

With Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House starting Jan. 20, high-ranking Republicans in the outgoing Bush administration will be less marketable for boardrooms positions, according to the association.

“If a party is shut out of both congressional houses plus the executive branch, as Republicans will be, its members’ chance of joining the board of a large corporation is about 30 percent less than it would otherwise be,” said Richard Lester of Texas A&M University, who carried out a study for the Academy of Management.

Helping Paulson and several of his White House colleagues, though, is that Cabinet members are the most likely among retiring governmental officials to be recruited to serve on corporate boards.

“They were more than twice as likely as former senators, and more than five times as likely as former representatives, to be appointed corporate directors during the 16 years covered by the research — 1988 through 2003,” according to the association.

Not to pick on Paulson — there are more than a dozen Cabinet members — but he has become one of the highest-profile, most controversial of Bush’s aides for the way he has been handling the $700 billion financial industry bailout.

But Paulson’s a survivor. This former Nixon administration official left government the first time around in 1973 (like a lot of his colleagues) and quickly worked his way up the ladder at investment firm Goldman Sachs, finally serving as chairman and CEO when he got his Treasury job.

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing  (U.S Treasury Secretary Paulson with President Bush outside Treasury Building in Washington)

While White House hopefuls Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama wasted no time trading barbs in their second presidential debate, they agreed on the one man they would like to see running their Treasury Department to help pull the U.S. economy out of a tailspin: investment guru Warren Buffett.

“A supporter of Senator Obama’s is Warren Buffett. He has already weighed in and helped stabilize some of the difficulties in the markets and with companies and corporations, institutions today,” McCain said.

“I like Meg Whitman, she knows what it’s like to be out there in the marketplace.  She knows how to create jobs.  Meg Whitman was CEO of a company that started with 12 people,” McCain said, referring to one of his own economic advisers who used to run online auction giant eBay.

“Warren would be a pretty good choice — Warren Buffett, and I’m pleased to have his support,” Obama said. “But there are other folks out there.”

Who would voters like to see running the Treasury Department under the next administration and working to fix the economy?

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

WASHINGTON - Sometimes it’s hard to tell when John McCain is joking.
 
Take his interview Tuesday with journalists at The Des Moines Register.
 
The Republican presidential candidate acknowledged the financial bailout measure before Congress was not perfect, but he said it was unacceptable to do nothing and admonished lawmakers for failing to pass a rescue plan.
 
Then, without cracking a smile or missing a beat, he added this little nugget: “I’m not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it … a little bit differently.”
 
With the Treasury secretary likely to have a huge amount of power under any bailout scheme, McCain was asked what sort of person he was looking for to fill that job. He said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had been doing admirably.
 
“I think a person along Paulson’s lines,” McCain said. Given the fragility of Wall Street, he added, any candidate “probably has to have a sound grounding in the financial markets and that aspect of America’s economy.”
 
The Arizona senator said if elected he would recruit the brightest and the best for his Cabinet, Democrat or Republican, in government or in business.
 
“I’ll go out and ask them to serve the country for a dollar a year,” he said.
 
He mused aloud about who might be enticed into government service: billionaire Iowa businessman Warren Buffett, eBay founder Meg Whitman, or Fed-Ex chief Fred Smith.
 

McCain strongly objected when a questioner suggested his running mate, Sarah Palin, was not as experienced as others he named as potential government servants.
 
“She’s been a mayor. She’s been an overseer of billions — I don’t know how many billions of dollars of natural resources. She’s been a member of the PTA (Parent Teacher Association). She’s been a governor,” McCain said.
 
He express skepticism when told many people, including now some conservative Republicans, questioned her level of experience.
 
“Really? I haven’t detected that,” he said.
 
“Now, if there’s a Georgetown cocktail party person who quote calls himself a conservative and doesn’t like her, good luck, good luck, fine,” McCain added.
 
“I think that the American people have overwhelmingly shown their approval. Are there people who will be detractors of her? That’s fine. That’s fine. That’s what politics is all about.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain speaks at Truman Presidential Library  in Independence, Missouri, on Wednesday)