WASHINGTON - THE US Senate voted on Monday to confirm Mr Timothy Geithner as US treasury secretary, despite misgivings over his personal tax problems and ongoing government efforts to rescue the battered US economy.

Senators voted 60-34 to confirm Mr Geithner after debate in which foes cited his failure to pay certain taxes earlier this decade and his support for government intervention in the economy while his backers stressed his expertise and the urgent need to pull the US economy out of a paralysing recession.

'The approval of Secretary Geithner is an important step in tackling the economic crisis head-on,' Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, said after the vote. 'But there's no honeymoon. Now the work begins.'

Opposition came mostly from Republicans, joined by three Democratic Senators - Mr Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Mr Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Mr Russell Feingold of Wisconsin - as well as independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont who usually votes with the Democrats.

During the debate, lawmakers zeroed in on Mr Geithner's past failure to pay certain US payroll taxes during his 2001-2004 employment at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and some warned that a vote for him was a vote for unwarranted government intervention in the US economy.

'I don't believe Mr Geithner has been remotely candid,' about his tax trouble, said Republican Senator James Inhofe, who warned a 'yes' vote amounted to 'ratifying aggressive federal government intervention in the economy'.

Mr Inhofe blasted the $700-billion (S$1 trillion) Wall Street bailout package approved last year, and declared: 'Anyone who supported that at the time if they want redemption, this is the time to get it. You can be redeemed by opposing Mr Geithner in his confirmation.'

But Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who backed the nomination, expressed misgivings about the tax imbroglio but said Mr Geithner was 'not incompetent, nor corrupt, and he's certainly not unethical'.

Mr Hatch said Mr Geithner was 'uniquely qualified' to help revive the US economy and warned fellow conservatives that they would regret forcing Mr Obama to pick someone else because 'you are not going to get a better person for this job'.

'You'd better be darn happy the president has been willing to go to somebody who is a lot less ideological than any of us ever expected in this very, very important position,' said Mr Hatch.

Mr Geithner, a senior Treasury official in the 1990s, brings inside-knowledge of how the crisis has unfolded from his most recent job as president of the New York Federal Reserve.

At his confirmation hearing last week, he apologised for his 'completely unintentional' tax errors, insisting he had paid back 34,000 dollars to the Internal Revenue Service - which he is now in line to supervise.

Mr Geithner promised a 'comprehensive plan' for the economy, starting with the housing market, and vowed to reopen frozen lines of credit by exerting greater pressure on banks that have benefited from a $700 billion bailout.

Reiterating the cardinal tenet of past administrations, he said 'a strong dollar is in America's national interest' as he promised to make wise use of a planned stimulus package worth a whopping $825 billion.

Following up his confirmation hearing, Mr Geithner fleshed out his policy priorities in a 102-page packet of answers to senators' written questions.

On the international front, he wrote that Mr Obama believes China is manipulating its currency, the yuan, and plans aggressive diplomacy to ensure US trading partners play fair. -- AFP