TOMMY BOY
Limo and driver? How about just a reserved parking place?
Richardson and Daschle, huh?
Was there a soft vet and a hard vet here, depending upon who the nominee may have been?
posted by UMRBlog @ 12:12
12 comments
UMRBlog
The Upper Mississippi River Basin:Life, Worship, Sports, Transportation, Golf, Politics and other bizarre behaviors in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The Quincy area has a history of tolerance. We seem to suffer fools gladly.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Richardson and Daschle, huh?
Was there a soft vet and a hard vet here, depending upon who the nominee may have been?
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12 Comments:
And some they just confirm anyways. Apparently, vetting is something the Obama team does twice a year with their dogs.
Goodby Tommy Boy--
Despised you before.....
Despise you now!
Way to go BO !!
The difference between vetting Daschle and Richardson is that the Richardson pay-for-play investigation was known at the time he was chosen. Since even casual observers like me knew about this, I figured Obama knew something I didn't and so nominated Richardson anyway. Ooops!
Daschle didn't tell Obama about his various problems until a month after he was nominated, but Obama evidently wanted him anyway---another one of these "no one else can do the job" guys like Geithner who are too big to fail.
From what I can tell, even though the good ol' boys in the Senate were all set to confirm him, the public outcry over yet another nominee with tax problems was enormous and he started losing support in the Senate.
It also didn't help that Obama fanzines like The New York Times demanded that Daschle withdraw.
Amazingly, some people actually believed Obama when he promised to change the way things were done in DC.
Obama did change the way things are done in DC. He admitted a mistake (on Daschle). G.W. Bush never would admit a mistake.
I appreciate it when a man can admit he made a mistake. Nevertheless, Obama is still sending the wrong signal about tax cheats. Even though Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer were thrown under the bus for their tax issues, tax cheat Timothy Geithner is still Treasury Secretary.
I don't love the Geithner pick but I think he has a decent argument for inadvertence. He worked for the only employer in the U.S. who doesn't pay the Employers' portion of payroll taxes because of a treaty. He hands his docs to a CPA and the CPA doesn't see the difference...sign here Timmy. Pretty bad vet to miss it but the initial non-payment is semi-understandable.
It sort of turns on what disclaimers were passed out with the 1099's and whether they were passed on to the CPA.
TYFCB
Interestingly, the IMF, an international entity, pays its employees’ taxes and even sends them a notice regarding the taxes owed.
Just to ram the point home that laws are meant for some and not for others, Geithner also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper (“Haven’t we all?” the U.S. Senators conducting the confirmation hearing must be thinking to themselves.)
So, Mr. Geithner, soon to be fifth in the line of succession to the President, gets a pass for not paying taxes and for employing an illegal immigrant while Linda Chavez, in line for Labor Secretary, gets destroyed for giving a woman in danger some humanitarian assistance.
God bless America: land of the free and the home of the double standard.
No, it doesn't pay their taxes. It gives them a stipend instead of paying the employers share and then it sends them a note that is based on it not being a citizen of any country and to check with the employee's Country of Origin tax expert.
Your explanation of Geithner's domestic is also incomplete. She worked for him for about three years. When hired she was "pending review", perfectly legal hire. She was then papered and, for more than two years, a perfectly legal hire. Then she....gasp!....married a USA citizen. This changed both her name and her permit status. She was "pending review" again, except now, that's not a perfectly legal hire. So Geithner's sin on immigration was that he didn't fire her for marrying a fellow american.
If you don't see any mitigation in there, you might be a committed absolutist.
TYFCB
This is how it worked. IMF employees were expected to pay their taxes out of their own money. But the IMF then gave them an extra allowance, known as a "gross-up," to cover those tax payments. This was done in the Annual Tax Allowance Request, in which the employee filled out some basic information -- marital status, dependent children, etc. -- and the IMF then estimated the amount of taxes the employee would owe and gave the employee a corresponding allowance.
At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, "I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund." Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn't pay the tax. For several years in a row.
And then he sent the package to his accountant, signed the 1040 and paid the tax on line 26.
Not admirable. Not the same as Daschle. All I'm saying.
TYFCB
Geithner’s tax troubles were actually far more egregious. Geithner actually acknowledged years ago that he owed the taxes—but didn’t pay them until he was nominated for the Treasury job. That hardly counts as a mistake.
Geithner’s situation was nonetheless a bigger ethical lapse than Daschle's. As an employee of the International Monetary Fund in 2001 and later years, Geithner was responsible for sending a check to the IRS to cover his own payroll taxes. He didn’t do so. What he did do was submit a request to the IMF for reimbursement of those taxes. And he collected.
If That's the best we have in this country for Secretary of the Treasure then we are worse off than I thought. Very sad!!! CHANGE??? Oh well!!
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