Geithner Needs more Humility

CNS News is reporting testimony by Treasury Secretary Geithner regarding the Obama Administration's plan to raise taxes on small business owners.  Two comments jumped out at me:

... I have to go out and borrow a trillion dollars over the next 10 years to finance those tax benefits for the top 2 percent, and I don't think I can justify doing that,” said Geithner.

And shortly after:

...then you have to do exceptionally deep cuts in benefits for middle-class Americans and you have to shrink the overall size of government programs, things like education, to levels that we could not accept as a country,” said Geithner.

What struck me wrong in the first quote is the use of the pronoun "I", and the conclusion "I don't think I can justify doing that."  What arrogance to think that an appointed official of the United States of America believes that he and not the Congress is the gatekeeper on how tax revenues and borrowings are balanced.

In the second quote is the assertion that we as a country could not accept a smaller government.  Again, this is for the Congress to decide what is priority and what is not.  It is up to Congress to raise revenues or decrease spending (or both), because they are our representatives.  It is the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to advise and challenge the Congress, and afterward to do the will of Congress as enshrined in law.  It is not his duty to tell Congress what the people do and do not want.

Secretary Geithner needs to be reined in.  His ego has outgrown the confines of his office.