A tax “mistake,” topped by a nanny issue? Enough to cause an emergency meeting of the Senate Finance committee. I’m having a Zoe Baird flashback and it’s giving me a headache. But that’s what the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
Gibbs responded immediately:
“The President-elect chose Tim Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary because he’s the right person to help lead our economic recovery during these challenging times. He’s dedicated his career to our country and served with honor, intelligence and distinction. That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed. He made a common mistake on his taxes, and was unaware that his part-time housekeeper’s work authorization expired for the last three months of her employment. We hope that the Senate will confirm him with strong bipartisan support so that he can begin the important work of the country,” said incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
Weeks have passed since Geithner was nominated. Why in the hell is this just coming out today?
Weeks have passed since Geithner was nominated. Why in the hell is this just coming out today?
Because the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch and they’ve been waiting to pounce?
Sounds like that’s true GeoT. Good ole Rupert. And I bet this has knocked off the Hillary conformation from the wingnut hosts who will now trash Geithner.
That would be great, but this is basic vetting. You can’t blame the messenger on this one. These are obvious issues that for a treasury guy are serious.
That didn’t make sense. Oh well, such is life.
Politico is reporting they knew about this during the vetting.
That would be great, but this is basic vetting. You can’t blame the messenger on this one.
These are obvious issues that for a treasury guy are serious.
TaylorMarsh | Homepage | 01.13.2009 – 4:12 pm | #
this has all been known since November and he has payed the back taxes. The WSJ decided to resurrect it. This is all they have and it ain’t much
Taylor, I didn’t mean you didn’t make any sense, I meant my post didn’t make any sense.
Seems like just more of the kids (Republicans) don’t want the adults to run our government. Instead they want to talk about distractions.
It would seem when the incoming Obama transition team wants to know everything up to and including every screen name or blog entry some flunky has ever had before they get a lowlevel job they maybe could do a little better job looking into the high profile folk?
I know they are just human like the rest of us but come on people. The repugs will hang you with the rope you give them. Ask Bill Clinton about that.
OK, do we really want someone running the Treasury who didn’t bother to pay his taxes properly? He was told in ’06 that he owed for at least two years; he paid those, with penalties. But — and this is a HUGE “but,” at least for me — he KNEW he had had the same job in two other years, but didn’t pay THOSE back taxes UNTIL he knew he was going to be nominated to run our money and not just his.
To me that smacks of cheating the government. These are self-employment taxes; apparently the job he had the people in charge tell everyone they’re self-employed and owe additional taxes and he … well, perhaps he thought he could get away with it.
Vetting my butt. Yes, they vetted him. Apparently the transition team is the one who told him to pay up. The question is, do we want a tax cheat running the Treasury?
P.S. I think the nanny thing is fairly benign and easily explained. This guy presided over the Wall Street meltdown, which is reason enough to reject him. Cheating us all is definitely reason no. 2
Beth, it will be a problem, I suspect, for just the reason you said.
It’s just too ironic. Already, the media comments are chewing him up.