Treasury island: Geithner's lost crew

[dkf]

If President Barack Obama wants to boost confidence in his economic recovery plan, he’s going to have to assure the markets that there isn’t just one guy working on it.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to stabilize the nation’s banking industry, implement a housing rescue plan and prop up a plunging stock market – all with about 18 vacant senior positions, virtually the entire upper echelon of his department.

The staff is so faceless that lobbyists have begun trading jokes about a “ghost” bureaucracy, given the many empty picture frames hanging on the department’s walls.

Administration officials told POLITICO they will soon submit to the Senate a slate of candidates for the posts, including replacements for two who bowed out Thursday, one of whom was Geithner’s pick for his top deputy.

Most of the people who have been tapped to fill the top positions are already working in the building; they just don’t have their titles, their offices and their portraits yet.

But without those particulars, Geithner’s quiet colleagues can’t publicly represent the administration, robbing Obama of the opportunity to work multiple media outlets to pitch the program or to flood Capitol Hill with a show of force – and action – that could impress lawmakers, investors and the public.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19723.html

[Jennicut]

1. Uh, its Politico. Screw them. People dropped out and now the positions will be filled.

No other administration has all positions filled that fast, utter crap.

[dkf]

2. Wapo did an article on the same thing the day before. Politico is riffing off that

Understaffed Geithner can't keep up, critics say

By DANIEL WAGNER
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 5, 2009; 10:27 AM

WASHINGTON -- For five weeks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has battled the worst economic crisis in generations with no key deputies in place. That's made for a rocky debut for the man President Barack Obama put in charge of addressing the financial crisis.
...
Among the harshest critics of Treasury's leadership vacuum is Paul Volcker, an Obama economic adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman who last week called the situation "shameful."

"The secretary of the treasury is sitting there without a deputy, without any undersecretaries, without any, as far as I know, assistant secretaries responsible in substantive areas at a time of very severe crisis," Volcker said. "He shouldn't be sitting there alone."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030501358_pf.html

[dkf]

3. Also, Treasury couldn't send anyone to Dodd's AIG hearing.

"Treasury's staff problems apparently have affected its ability to report to Congress on the massive bailouts it has been doling out.

At a Senate hearing Thursday about failed insurance giant American International Group Inc. _ which has received four separate bailouts totaling more than $170 billion _ Sen. Chris Dodd said he had asked Treasury for someone to appear, but that no one was available.

"I am not pleased that we don't have someone here from Treasury to explain what their role in this is," Dodd said. "