In recent days news has come out that President-elect Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner apparently ‘forgot’ to pay three years worth of income taxes – over $34,000.  Wow.  How ironic that the man that would oversee the IRS doesn’t even pay his own taxes.  And yet, somehow, President-elect Obama and Democrats in Congress think this man is fit to oversee the United States Treasury. 

Apparently Mr. Geithner worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a number of years.  As an international organization, they did not collect income or Social Security taxes.  However, the IMF issues very clear guidelines for its employees each year explaining to them their responsibility to pay all their taxes.  Geithner also had signed annual statements saying that he would do so.

In 2006 Mr. Geithner was audited by the IRS and notified he owed taxes from 2003 and 2004 which he did pay promptly.  But, it wasn’t until days before Obama nominated him to the Treasury that he took care of unpaid taxes from 2001 and 2002 and then only when Obama’s transition team told him about the problem.  In other words, he only paid his bill when he got caught.

Despite the mainstream media’s portrayal of the issue, this is NOT a minor problem NOR is this the first problem for an Obama appointee.  Other that have come out that you should be aware of:

• Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as global warming czar, has very strong and scary ties to the socialist group Commission for a Sustainable World Society.
• Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel apparently did discuss the a potential successor for Obama’s Senate seat with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.  Of course the governor is about to be impeached in the ‘pay to play’ scheme in which he was trying to auction off the senate seat. 
• New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is forced to withdraw from his nomination as Commerce Secretary after it is revealed he is being investigated by a federal grand jury in a ‘pay to play’ scheme that sent money to his campaigns. 
• Attorney general nominee Eric Holder is, in my opinion, the scariest of all cabinet nominees.  The man has some of the most liberal ideas of anyone – someone who thinks in lock step with the ACLU.  Mr. Holder is of course most infamous for supporting President Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Mr. Rich was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and had been indicted on 51 counts including trading with the enemy, fraud and tax evasion.  After Mr. Rich’s ex-wife, Denise Rich, made large campaign donations to the Democratic Party and pushed for the pardon, it was granted on Holder’s recommendation.  That is the most famous example but there is another, lesser known one that shows a complete lack of judgement by the man.  He also backed Clinton’s pardon of 16 FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation) Puerto Rican terrorists in 1999.  The FALN members had, according to the FBI, been linked to “more than 130 bombings, several armed robberies, six slayings and injury to hundreds of others.” 

Kind of makes you wonder what the heck is going on with these folks!