US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will not resign despite calls from some Republicans for him to leave his post after a recent US credit rating downgrade, his office and the White House said Sunday. "The president asked Secretary Geithner to stay on at Treasury and welcomes his decision," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
The decision came amid calls by Republicans for Geithner's resignation following an embarrassing downgrade in the US credit rating and a bruising political battle to get Congress to raise the US debt ceiling.
It put an end to speculation that Geithner would step down after an intense two and a half years in office that saw the US economy plunge into worst recession since the Great Depression.
"Secretary Geithner has let the president know that he plans to stay on in his position at Treasury. He looks forward to the important work ahead on the challenges facing our great country," Treasury Department spokeswoman Jenni Lecompte said in a statement.
On Saturday, Republican Senator Rand Paul called on Geithner to step down for what Paul's office called a "gross mismanagement of federal economic policy and his role in the first-ever downgrade of United States debt."
US congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Republican candidate for president in 2012, also called on Geithner to resign amid the downgrade and debt crisis.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's docked the United States from a sterling AAA to a AA+ rating on Friday, largely because of the failure of bitterly divided US leaders to reach a consensus on containing the country's spiraling debt.
Washington has been split over how to reduce its more than $14 trillion debt without further hobbling the sluggish economic recovery, and even the limited debt deal came after a bruising partisan battle. Geithner has been Obama's sole treasury secretary, installed in January 2009 at the beginning of Obama's presidency.
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