Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as part of a grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday, was asked by a Republican lawmaker to resign. It is a call he is likely to hear again and again as next year’s election campaign heats up.

Earlier in the week, a Republican challenger for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut had demanded Geithner quit, lambasting him for being “cozy” with banks bailed out by the federal government. Two other Republicans have requested hearings into Geithner’s handling of the bailout of insurer American International Group Inc.

“Conservatives need a bad guy,” said pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International in Utica, New York. “Who better than the Treasury secretary?”

While Democrats have generally defended Geithner’s handling of the economy and the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, some are beginning to blame President Barack Obama’s administration for not doing enough to help Main Street voters. Geithner, who before his Treasury post was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also is becoming a target for those critics.

Earlier this week, Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon told MSNBC that Geithner needed to go.

Yesterday, Republican Representative Kevin Brady of Texas told Geithner bipartisan dissatisfaction with him was growing.

“Conservatives agree, liberal Democrats agree, that it really is time for a fresh start,” Brady said at a hearing of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.

‘Lost All Confidence’

“For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?” asked Brady, who first won his seat in 1996. “The public has lost all confidence in your ability to the do the job, and it is reflecting on your president.”

The administration stepped in to defend Geithner after the hearing. “Secretary Geithner has helped steer the American economy back from the brink, and is now leading the effort on financial reform,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said in an e-mail statement.

During his testimony, Geithner dismissed the suggestion he step down, and blamed the policies of Republican President George W. Bush for the financial crisis that has pushed the nation into the deepest recession since the 1930s.

Republicans “gave this president an economy falling off the cliff,” Geithner told Brady, a former executive at his local chamber of commerce in the Houston area. “I can’t take responsibility for the legacy of crises you bequeathed the country.”

‘Basic Neglect’

The “worst financial crisis in generations” happened after “almost a decade, certainly eight years, of basic neglect of basic public goods, in health care, in education, in public infrastructure, in how we use energy,” Geithner said.

Another Republican on the panel, Representative Michael Burgess of Texas, also expressed dissatisfaction with Geithner.

“I don’t think you should be fired,” Burgess told him. “I thought you should have never been hired.”

Democrats at the hearing dismissed the attacks on Geithner as Republican efforts to rewrite history.

“It just amazes me how there are some people here who are trying to pretend, and I think consciously and intentionally pretending, that the economic circumstances that we’re confronting, all of them, mysteriously materialized over the course of the last nine months or so, which is totally, completely false,” said Representative Maurice Hinchey of New York.

Connecticut Seat

Earlier this week, former Republican congressman Rob Simmons, who seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd in the 2010 election, said Geithner should resign over his role in the AIG bailout.

Simmons cited a report issued Nov. 16 by the TARP special inspector general that faulted the New York Fed, with Geithner at its helm, for making “limited efforts” to protect taxpayer funds during last year’s rescue of AIG.

AIG was saved last year with a package of loans and investments that has swelled to $182.3 billion. Banks, including Societe Generale SA, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG, received the full value on credit-default swaps purchased from New York-based AIG to protect against declines in mortgage- linked investments.

The “policy decisions came with a cost -- they led directly to a negotiating strategy with the counterparties that even then-New York Fed President Geithner acknowledged had little likelihood of success,” the TARP watchdog, Neil Barofsky, said in the report.

‘Backdoor Bailout’

Yesterday, Republican Representatives Roy Blunt of Missouri and Spencer Bachus of Alabama requested a congressional hearing on the AIG rescue, calling it a “backdoor bailout” of the banks that traded with the insurer. The House’s Financial Services Committee “needs to hear from Geithner” on the matter, they wrote to the panel’s chairman, Democratic Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

Earlier this week, seven House Democrats led by Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland called for a review of the Federal Reserve system due to Barofsky’s investigation.

Peter Morici, a trade official in former President Bill Clinton’s administration, said unease among some Democrats toward Geithner stems from larger concerns over the economy. “The left is feeling pressure because there are no jobs,” said Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.

To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Schmidt in Washington at rschmidt5@bloomberg.net; Lorraine Woellert in Washington at lwoellert@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 20, 2009 00:01 EST