Commentary by James L. Lambert

The Obama administration’s nomination of Timothy Geithner to be the new  Secretary of the Treasury comes with a pretty startling revelation. Last week, Mr. Geithner appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to explain his predicament.

 

"What senators learned at a gathering was not only that Giethner had failed to pay self-employment taxes during his time at the International Monetary Fund. They learned that the IMF had repeatedly informed Giethner, as it had all its employees, of his obligations to pay that tax. They learned that Geithner signed documents saying he would pay the tax. And they learned that Giethner paid part of his obligation after a 2006 Internal Revenue Service audit, and the rest of it after he was nominated to become treasury secretary. In all, he paid $42,703 in back taxes and interest. In addition to his payment of the unpaid self-employment taxes, Giethner also had to pay $5,566 to cover other shortfall in his tax payments, for a total of $48,268 in back taxes and interest." (Byron York, National Review - 01/19/2009)

 

This is from the person that President Obama wants to appoint as the head of the US Treasury. The Treasury Secretary is the charge of the Internal Revenue Department and provides the President important advice on fiscal matters.

 

Yet the nominee and the President elect offer’s this dilemma as a "common mistake."  Mr. Geithner’s 'dilemma' has been going on since 2001. Yet this nominee apparently was not concerned enough about the matter years ago to address it. All I know is that if I get a delinquent tax bill, I care about it - a lot!  Everyone knows that that government attaches excessive interest expense to our delinquent taxes.

 

Yet, the Treasury Secretary nominee didn't have the foresight to successfully address his own problem. That being said, how can we have the confidence in Mr. Geithner in directing the course of this countries economy, if he can’t even properly take care of his own finances?  It doesn’t make sense to confirm this man to such an important position.

 

It also didn’t make sense to spend $170 million dollars on last Tuesday's Presidential inauguration. Just four years ago President Bush was routinely criticized by many in the media for spending $42.3 million dollars for his inauguration. Spending such money for essentially a party and a celebration is obscene. Did Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and the rest of his staff forget we are in a severe recession? According to Congressional spokeswoman, Carole Florman, “the actual swearing-in ceremony cost $1.24 million.” That means a lot of cash went to other things like parties, rentals, security and related costs.

 

The theme of the Obama campaign has been to bring hope and change to Washington. If President Obama really wants to send the right message to all of us, he could have cut back all the celebrations and parties to show America us he is serious about protecting US taxpayers. Back in 2005, the media hounded George W. Bush for the outrageous costs of his inauguration which was four times less than this one.

 

I believe it is important that the President set an example in deeds, not in words. He should start today by withdrawing the name of Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary nominee. Finally, he should follow that up by apologizing for the outrageously expensive inauguration that cost us, the US taxpayers, a record amount of money.  

 

 

James L. Lambert, a frequent contributor to ChristianMirror.net and author of Porn in America, is a licensed nationwide real-estate mortgage loan sales agent and can be contacted through his website.