Editor’s note: Adrienne Gonzalez is founder and managing editor of Jr Deputy Accountant as well as regular contributor to leading financial/investment sites like Seeking Alpha and GoldmanSachs666. You see all of her posts for GC by going here. By day, she teaches unlicensed accountants to pass the CPA exam, though what she does in her copious amounts of freetime in the evening is really none of your business. Follow her adventures in Fedbashing and CPA-wrangling on Twitter @adrigonzo but please don’t show up unannounced at her San Francisco office as she’s got a mean streak. Her favorite FASB is 166.
I don’t know about you guys but when I’m trying to avoid spilling the beans, I’ll skirt around the issue as much as possible. God forbid my words come back to haunt me later, it’s so much easier to be as vague as possible.
Turbo Tim Geithner obviously subscribes to this method as well. Skirting around the issue of a tax increase? Our Treasury Secretary has that little song and dance down.
More after the jump
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview aired Sunday that the administration will do “what’s necessary” to revive the economy, and didn’t rule out new taxes as a means to do so.
“We’re going to have to look at – we’re going to have to do what’s necessary,” Geithner told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, host of “This Week.”
“Remember the critical thing is people understand that when we have recovery established, led by the private sector, then we have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. We have to bring them down to a level where the amount we’re borrowing from the world is stable at a reasonable level. And that’s going to require some very hard choices. And we’re going to have to do that in a way that does not add unfairly to the burdens that the average American already faces.”
Well what the hell is that supposed to mean? Sounds like a tax increase to me. With our Chinese credit card already cut and record-blowing amounts of Treasury auctions flopping week after week, one can only wonder where we’re going to be forced to make those “hard choices” Geithner is talking about.
Well instead of an across the board tax increase, we have some other ideas for raising the United States’ revenue. Hope you’re listening, Timmy!
• Obama Cabinet bikini car wash on Pennsylvania Ave. – Listen, no one wants to see Larry Summers in a bikini, so maybe the fundraising will come from paying him to keep his clothes on.
• White House yard sale -Taking a cue from California, the White House could put up all those black Secret Service helicopters up for a deep, deep discount. I’m sure they could pull at least $20 a pop for cardboard cutouts of Bill Clinton that have been gathering dust in the basement
• Rent out Ben Bernanke’s industrial strength money printing machine by the hour – Listen, we already know the thing works, why not rent it out to other nations engaged in quantitative easing? I’d say rent it out to Zimbabwe but they might not be able to cover the bill
• FOMC cage match fights at Fedquarters – We’ve all heard about dissent at FOMC meetings but what if we kill two birds with one stone – bring new transparency to the monetary policy-setting process AND pull in $75 a ticket to see “El Jefe” Jeff Lacker take on “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke in spandex and Luchador masks? I know I would pay to see that.
If you’ve got other ideas, we’re all ears. And if none of these work, I guess there’s always legalized prostitution. Though I’m not quite sure how well Tim “Eraserhead” Geithner would do as a man whore… Oh well. Tax increase here we come!