Timothy Geithner says a second term unlikely at Treasury

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner says he’s “confident” he won’t be serving a second term, even if President Obama is reelected.

“He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. “I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”

Cabinet secretaries are rarely expected to serve a second term, and Geithner is no exception. As the last remaining member of Obama’s original economic team, Geithner has fought back rumors of his departure before.

In August, after a brutal fight with Congress over raising the debt limit, many speculated that the secretary was preparing to resign. Word spread that his teenage son was planning to return to New York in the fall to finish high school. Geithner announced then that he had informed the president he would stay on, but did not say for how long.

Geithner, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, did not indicate what he plans to do next, referring only to “something else for me.”