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Patrick to lunch with Geithner, welcome Irish president

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 26, 2009 05:09 PM

By Frank Phillips and Matt Viser, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick’s headaches over a budget crisis and Beacon Hill battles are taking a back seat Wednesday to a schedule that is peppered with national and international flavors.

Patrick is scheduled to have lunch in his office with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, according to a top administration official. Geithner will be in Roxbury on Wednesday to announce the national recipients of $1.5 billion in tax credits awarded under the federal stimulus legislation.

Patrick is also welcoming Irish President Mary McAleese in the corner office Wednesday morning, where he will be joined by Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo.

Meanwhile, a revised budget proposal the governor was supposed to file last week isn’t slated to be submitted to lawmakers until next week. That will give the Legislature only four weeks to review Patrick's plan before the fiscal year begins July 1.

Patrick, like the governors that preceded him, has been the subject of frequent national political speculation. Rumors that he could be the next Supreme Court justice died down only when President Barack Obama announced this morning that his pick was federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor.