Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Finance Committee has cleared the nomination of Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary despite unhappiness over his mistakes in paying his taxes. The committee approved the nomination on an 18-5 vote, sending it to the full Senate. President Barack Obama is hoping for quick approval so that the point man for the administration’s economic rescue effort can begin work.

The committee vote came a day after Geithner appeared before the panel to apologize for what he called “careless mistakes” in failing to pay $34,000 in taxes earlier in the decade, when he worked at the International Monetary Fund.

Geithner paid the back taxes plus interest for the years 2003 and 2004 after being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. But he did not pay taxes he owed for 2001 and 2002, even though he had made the same mistakes for those years, until shortly before he was nominated by Obama last November to be treasury secretary.

The nomination was expected to win approval by the full Senate, with many lawmakers saying that given the serious economic crisis facing the country, the new president deserved to have the services of a man of Geithner’s abilities and experience.

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Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post

During the Bush administration there were many on the left/libber side of the aisle that called Pres. Bush’s efforts ‘the fleecing of America’. Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you that we have not yet begun to witness the fleecing of America, not in the manner we are about to see under the Obama administration!

Placing Tim Geithner at the head of the Treasury is like giving the fox a key to the hen house, as I said yesterday, akin to making Keith Richards the head of the DEA, nothing good can come of this. I don’t say that off the cuff. Geithner is a tax cheat, by ANY definition! He didn’t get arrested, he didn’t go to prison, he wasn’t even charged, but he is, by his own admission, a tax cheat. I wonder just how smart the guy really is too. He used a popular on-line tax program and he made serious errors and oversights. Is he the best person that Obama could find to run the Dept. of the Treasury?

Geithner has been the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the past six years and was a key participant in decisions made by the Bush administration to deal with the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the Great Depression.

Wait a minute!! Wasn’t the big slogan of Obama and Company *CHANGE*? If Geithner was ‘a key participant in decisions made by the Bush administration to deal with the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the Great Depression’, and given that the financial situation of this nation has gone from bad to worse, is Geithner the *CHANGE* the Treasury needs? Is the decision making ability of the Obama administration what this nation needs?

I think the answer to those questions is rather obvious to Conservatives. Of course Democrats, libbers, assorted leftists and supporters of Hamas and al-Qaeda won’t think so, but to any REAL, red-blooded American the answers are as plain as the nose on your face. Obama has made his 1st ‘most grievous’ error, and I am sure that this will NOT be the last. Hillary as Sec. of State, the closing of Guantanamo, hell folks, this is just the opening act!

Geithner apologizes for not paying taxes

WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade and apologized to Congress.

He told the Senate Finance Committee he was sorry that his past transgressions were now an issue in his confirmation at a time of deepening economic crisis. He urged Congress to act quickly and forcefully to deal with the crisis. A top administration priority is to foster economic recovery and “get credit flowing again,” Geithner testified.

As to his failure to pay the payroll taxes from 2001 to 2004 while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, Geithner said: “These were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes.”

“But they were unintentional,” he said. “I should have been more careful.”

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Geithner apologizes for not paying taxes

Have any of you fine folks ever been in *tax trouble*?? Have you ever been audited by chance?

If you have, you know, fully well, the IRS is NOT kind. They are not even polite, not even remotely polite! The IRS will belittle you, they will talk to you as if you are already a convicted criminal, and somehow, I don’t think “But they (errors) were unintentional, I should have been more careful.” is going to be an accepted excuse!

As Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner will be the head of the IRS. Is a guy that failed to pay taxes and then made what the IRS would consider to be incredibly LAME excuses, the guy we want heading the Treasury??

Geithner told the panel that he had prepared some of the returns himself with a popular tax-preparation computer program.

Ya know, if I had thought of this, I wouldn’t have needed a CPA when I was still doing business. Sure, I’d have paid taxes and penalties at some point but what the hell, I’d get a nice free pass from Congress and the Senate. The almost certain to be approved tax cheat that’s about to become Secretary of the Treasury would be my friend and he’d keep the IRS at bay while I explained how that Turbo Tax thing just didn’t get the job done.

If we want this nation to EVER prosper again we MUST remove those from power that have been proven to have engaged in improprieties. Legal, business, moral, whatever those improprieties may be. Our current president has admitted that he did cocaine and smoked pot. Bush was an admitted drug user and alcoholic in his past. Clinton used drugs too, no matter how many times the lying SOB says he didn’t inhale, and then there’s still that Monica thing that taints the Clinton presidency.

A tax cheat is no different. We must have leaders that are above reproach. Having a tax cheat like Tim Geithner at the head of Treasury would be akin to allowing Keith Richards to become the head of the DEA!