Geithner on the go!

There’s a lot to be said about Timothy Geithner, and little of it is complimentary at this point; many see him as the the banking/financial industry’s chief administrative finger puppet. But he’s also one of Obama’s point men in the president’s renewed drive to take his ideas on the road, which is why Geithner toured Minnesota’s much-touted “green economy” yesterday.

Indeed, the Land of 10,000 Lakes has capitalized on the fact that it’s essentially a desolate, windswept prairie by building turbines and developing a solid wind energy industry. It was also one of the first states to push ethanol as an additive for motor fuel, which surprises people who don’t realize that Minnesota is a progressive-minded state with high numbers of healthy, literate people, a demographic that tends to support renewables. And while no one’s immune to economic woes - the company Joe Biden endorsed as a triumph of stimulus spending laid off 300 people last year - hopes are still high that green jobs will prevail in 2010. Which, we imagine, is what Geithner was there to determine. Hopefully he’ll decide that funding growing companies is as important as eternally propping up their badly-run counterparts. Our hopes aren’t high - nor should they be, to judge by his performance as Treasury Secretary up to now - but both Obama and Joe Biden have pledged money towards green jobs and high-speed rail, so he can only backslide so far.

For more about high-speed rail plans, Click the Car. As a bonus, you’ll see a typically childish, obstructionist response from the Wisconsin GOP. Seeya next week!