President-elect Barack Obama formally appointed Timothy Geithner '83 as Treasury Secretary at a news conference in Chicago on Monday. As previously reported in the Dartmouth, Geithner will be the second consecutive Dartmouth alumnus to hold the position, succeeding current Secretary Henry Paulson '68.
"Having served in senior roles at the Treasury, the [International Monetary Fund], and the [Federal Reserve Bank of New York], Tim Geithner offers not just extensive experience shaping economic policy and managing financial markets; he also has an unparalleled understanding of our current economic crisis in all of its depth, complexity and urgency," Obama said during the conference. "Tim will waste no time getting up to speed. He will start his first day on the job with a unique insight into the failures of today's markets and a clear vision of the steps we must take to revive them."
As was widely expected, Obama officially appointed former Harvard University President and Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to head the White House Economic Council.
Other appointments to Obama's economic team included Christina Romer who will lead Obama's Council of Economic Advisers and Melody Barnes as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Romer is an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Barnes is chief counsel to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Geithner, Summers, Romer and Barnes will face tremendous challenges in the coming year as they attempt to deal with the current economic crisis, Obama said.
"The reality is that the economic crisis we face is no longer just an American crisis -- it's a global crisis," Obama said. "We will need to reach out to countries around the world to craft a global response."
Obama said that Geithner is exceptionally qualified to deal with the global crisis because of his Treasury Department experience as undersecretary for international affairs, his time spent abroad in Asia and Africa and his knowledge of Japanese and Chinese. The president-elect also highlighted Geithner's bipartisan tendencies.
Geithner will leave his role as the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where he has served as a first responder to the recent crisis on Wall Street, according to The New York Times.
"Tim has earned the confidence and respect of business, financial and community leaders, members of Congress, and political leaders around the world," Obama said. "I know he will do so once again as America's next Treasury secretary, the chief economic spokesman for my administration."
Following his announcement, Obama took questions about various economic issues, including a potential bailout of the automobile industry, the size of a potential January economic stimulus package and how the transfer of power between Paulson and Geithner will be streamlined. Obama answered the questions broadly, saying that he would defer "numbers" until his economic advisors draft specific plans.
