Consumer Advocates Call on President to Fire Treasury Secretary Geithner

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a letter issued today, two consumer advocacy groups called on President Obama to obtain Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's resignation.

The letter, from Harvey Rosenfield, the California-based consumer advocate who authored the state's insurance rate rollback Proposition 103, and Jim Donahue of the Washington-based WallStreetWatch.Org, asserts that Geithner has been unable to transcend his earlier role, while Chair of the New York Fed, as an architect of the failed Bush Administration Wall Street bailouts -- including the initial $80 billion AIG bailout.

Moreover, it appears the Treasury Department was aware of the latest round of bonus and retention payments but failed to announce them until after AIG issued $160 million in checks. Pointing out that the President has often called for "an open, honest government that would fight" for people, not special interests, it concludes that "In these grave days of national reckoning, the citizenry deserves better."

"It is clear that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner cannot provide the requisite independence that is required in an environment in which financial institutions and other businesses are demanding trillions of dollars of taxpayer money," the letter to President Obama states. "With respect, we urge you to ask for his resignation."

Two weeks ago, WallStreetWatch.Org issued a 231-page report pinpointing twelve policy decisions by the federal government that led directly to the current financial calamity -- and how those policies were dictated by Wall Street through over $5 billion in campaign and lobbying expenditures between 1998 and 2008 by many of the same firms who are receiving American taxpayer dollars.

The letter calling for Geithner's resignation, and "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," are available at: WallStreetWatch.org.

NLPC Blasts Obama/Geithner Big Bank Bailout

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to Peter Flaherty, President of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC):

"The trillion-dollar stimulus plan has not even passed Congress and the administration proposes to throw another trillion at Wall Street on top of the $750 billion already provided without a tangible benefit.

Buying toxic assets was supposed to be the purpose of the first TARP. After Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner warned that our financial system would collapse if TARP were not passed, they spent the money on something else - bolstering the capital position of banks. Politically well-connected Citigroup has received $45 billion, more than the book value of the company, and it is still in trouble.

The burden is on President Obama and Timothy Geithner to explain why another Wall Street bailout will work when the first one did not. This latest plan would have the taxpayer finance the purchase of troubled assets, opening the door for unregulated, opaque entities like hedge funds to speculate with taxpayer funds.

The White House doesn't get it. To have Countrywide VIP Christopher Dodd introduce tax cheat Timothy Geithner to detail the second stage of an already-unpopular Wall Street bailout shows poor judgment."

NLPC promotes ethics in public life. On January 29, NLPC asked Neil M. Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP, for an investigation of the sponsorship by Citigroup of a junket to the Caribbean by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and five other members of Congress, a trip that violated House Rules.