Bachmann Wants Tim Geithner Fired

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota wasted no time in pointing out the culprits behind the historic passage of the United States from the AAA credit ranks. "Tonight's decision by S&P to downgrade our credit rating to AA+ is a historically significant and serious event for the United States,” she warned.

“The United States has had a AAA credit rating since 1917. That rating has endured the great depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the terrorist attacks on 9/11. This president has destroyed the credit rating of the United States through his failed economic policies and his inability to control government spending by raising the debt ceiling," she advised, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Most of Bachmann’s critique was put forth on Friday night’s “On the Record with Greta van Susteren.”

Bachmann charged that the White House failed to act before the looming downgrade and now should be making up lost ground by demanding the resignation of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

“We were warned by all the credit agencies that a failure to deal with the debt would lead to this downgrade in our credit rating,” she said. “But instead, the president submitted a budget that had a $1.5 trillion deficit, then he requests a $2.4 trillion blank check on top of that. President Obama is destroying the foundations of our economy, one beam at a time. I call on the president to seek the immediate resignation of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and submit a plan that balances the budget in year. Turn the economy around and put our people back to work.”

Bachmann said that Obama would surely be pointing blame fingers in all sorts of directions, including at the tea party movement.

“I’m very concerned that the administration tomorrow might look for anyone else to blame. They may blame the tea party. They may blame ratings agencies or anyone else. They knew this was coming this year in January but they didn’t write a plan and they still don’t have a plan.”

Anticipating a severe market backlash Monday morning, she added:
“This is not an embarrassment to the nation. This is a very serious historically significant event that occurred. Again, since 1917 we’ve had a AAA credit rating. This is more than historically significant. We’re all concerned about what will happen and transpire with the markets Monday morning. We aren’t sure what investors will do. Clearly it was imperative that we literally deal with our spending priorities and not add to the debt ceiling in the way we did.

“And now we saw the proof in the pudding with the market crash that we just saw and today with this credit rating. This is very significant. That’s why the president of the United States needs to submit his plan, finally with place of real cuts to balance our budget this year because quite frankly, there are people, millions of Americans, 14 million Americans out of work. They need jobs. And the president has to do his job.”