President Barack Obama "is being failed by his economic team" and should replace Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic policy director Larry Summers, says US House Rep. Peter DeFazio.I'm torn between saying "These clowns have to go!" and saying "How convenient to use them as scapegoats for decisions made by people higher than themselves."
The prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus told MSNBC's The Ed Show that he and other House members are growing increasingly frustrated by a White House economic policy that focuses on maintaining the financial stability of Wall Street firms while largely overlooking Main Street concerns.
"I think there is a growing consensus in the [Democratic] caucus [that] we need a new economic team that cares more about jobs, Main Street and the American people than it does about Wall Street and huge bonuses," DeFazio (D-OR) told host Ed Schultz.
DeFazio suggested that the government "reclaim the unspent funds ... reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work rebuilding America's infrastructure.
"We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans," DeFazio said.
Either way, DeFazio has a point. I've long said that Tim Geithner was the wrong man for the job from day one, and that Ben Bernanke needed to have been fired long ago. But Congress's failure to oversee and regulate the financial industry and failure to pass strict laws to prevent this from happening again (and it will happen again folks, we're in another bubble right now) cannot be rewarded in the elections ahead.
Somehow I don't think they will be.
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