GOPers Call For Geithner’s Head, While (Some) Dems Say Hold the Pitchforks

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Racked by negative coverage of its new chairman and its de facto talk-radio leader, the GOP is in need of a cause to rally around — and it’s found one in the storm of public anger over AIG.

Rep. Connie Mack (FL) today became the first Republican to call for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s resignation over the AIG bonuses controversy, a call quickly seconded by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took the middle ground by warning ominously that Geithner is “on thin ice.”

Of course, Republican outrage at Geithner is to be expected. It’s the lukewarm support coming from Democrats that should most concern the Obama administration.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT), facing a strong challenger in his re-election race next year, released a statement yesterday that unabashedly blamed the Treasury Department for watering down the executive-compensation proposal he attached to last month’s stimulus bill. “I agreed to a modification in the legislation, reluctantly,” Dodd told CNN today.

Another Democratic senator who’s been a staunch Obama ally, Ron Wyden (OR), exposed a sad truth of Capitol Hill culture by speaking openly about the administration’s lack of enthusiasm for his bonus taxation plan — a plan that could have prevented the AIG bonuses mess. As Wyden told the Politico:

Sen. Snowe and I put a lot of hours into that effort. We had a bipartisan provision that in my view would have set up a huge disincentive for somebody paying out bonuses like was done in the AIG case. We had a bipartisan provision that in my view would have set up a huge disincentive for somebody paying out bonuses like was done in the AIG case. We both pushed very hard to persuade the Obama economic team to go along with our approach, and unfortunately we weren’t able to convince them.

If Geithner is looking for any voices of reason on the Hill today, he might do well to eye the House Judiciary Committee. Members of that panel hastily took up a leadership-backed bill today that would authorize the attorney general to claw back the AIG bonuses, but Democrats are already openly questioning whether the legislation is constitutional.

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