(Newser)
–
Tim Geithner caps a weekend of lobbying for the administration's $1 trillion Public-Private Investment Program in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, arguing that "the financial system as a whole is still working against a recovery." For the Treasury secretary, all the previous measures will fail to work without this one, since "while this crisis was caused by banks taking too much risk, the danger now is that they will take too little."
Geithner offers a populism-tinged justification for the rescue, decrying the "fundamentally unfair" manner that "ordinary Americans" have suffered while others profited. He also writes that the public-private approach, which "leverages taxpayer dollars," is better than pure government action. Despite the cost and the risk, the Treasury secretary sounds a confident note: "Progress will be uneven, with periods of stress and fragility. But these policies will work."
