Shelby: Jury is still out on Geithner

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Sunday that
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is not in the clear yet after a tumultuous week
dealing with the backlash from bonuses being awarded to executives of
bailed-out insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said he has always
been concerned about Geithner as President Barack Obama’s pick for the Treasury
post. “I have had reservations about him all along,” he said.

{mosads}Shelby, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” noted that Geithner was the chairman of New York’s Federal Reserve Board
before coming to Washington and had a key role in many of the federal
government’s decisions to bail out the financial sector in 2008. Geithner was
also heavily involved in the Bush administration’s action to prop up AIG,
pumping $85 billion last September into the company for its first of many
bailouts.

“The jury is really out on him,” Shelby said. “The president has a lot of
confidence in him.”

As Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Geithner has continued to lead the way in the
federal government’s rescue effort of Wall Street. He signed off on another $30
billion earlier this month to help bail out AIG. Overall, the insurance company
has taken in about $170 billion in government funds to keep operating.

But when news broke that AIG executives had received millions of dollars in
bonuses from taxpayers’ money, Geithner received much of the blame for the
scandal. Shelby said the Treasury secretary is going to have show drastic signs
of improvement after the anger about AIG’s bonuses.

“He is going to have to do a 180-degree turnaround to be a successful Treasury secretary,” Shelby said.