There’s an venerable saying that comes from the bowels of the Beltway bureaucracy: “Fuck it, move it up.” Rewarding failure is an enduring feature of Washington’s two-party political culture. Just ask Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, and the Senate Republicans who blindly support him.
The Senate Finance Committee revealed this week that Geithner had failed to pay about $43,000 in federal self-employment taxes for four years and only repaid the remaining $26,000 when he was named by Obama as his nominee for Treasury secretary in November. Brilliant and thorough, Geithner made no mistakes. That’s what the Internal Revenue Service and the vets on Obama’s team did.
Recall that Joe the Plumber, an average guy with no Ivy League degree in business or finance, was crucified on an Ohio tax lien for $1,182.98 (the state sent notice to the previous residence he had vacated). You can give the average person some leeway to make common mistakes. But Geithner is not an “ordinary” man – and saying that “$43,000 in unpaid taxes is a common occurrence” just doesn’t seem like a credible alibi. Supporters called Geithner “too big to fail.” Try “too smart to care.”
Geithner is a Dartmouth- and Johns Hopkins-educated president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank who, according to his extensive biography, “studied Japanese and Chinese and lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan.” Apparently he was too absorbed in learning foreign languages and too busy traveling abroad to pay attention to the crossing of “I’s” and dotting of “I’s” in household documents. In addition to failing to pay federal taxes for four years (you’re trying to deal with that without putting yourself behind bars!), Geithner also illegally employed an immigrant maid for three months after her work permits expired.
But wait. That’s not all, folks. Geithner’s employer at the time of his serial tax evasion was the International Monetary Fund. The agency refunds self-employment taxes to its employees. The allowance was intended to keep the salaries of IMF and World Bank employees at the same level as their foreign colleagues. IMF staff are provided with a Tax Manual setting out their responsibilities. (Maybe if it had been written in Japanese or Chinese, Geithner would have paid more attention to it?)
Employees also proactively apply for the annual tax credit, promising to “pay the taxes for which I received the tax credit.” The Senate Finance Committee released one of these forms signed by Geithner. A Senate source confirmed to Byron York of National Review that Geithner pocketed the cash: “He was receiving money. He was paid a tax credit to cover taxes he should have paid but did not.”
IRS employment application packages notify potential employees that the Treasury Inspector General for Fiscal Administration is reviewing all applicants and current employees “who have violated or are violating laws, rules, or regulations in the performance of their duties.” President-elect Obama is siding with a candidate to oversee the IRS, but he might not be qualified for even a lower-level position at the agency. This is crazy.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs calls Geithner’s transgressions “honest mistakes.” Media outlets such as the Associated Press attempted to downplay his disregard for the law as mere “tax nonsense.” When Democrats like Geithner, Al Franken and Charlie Rangel default on their legal obligations, they are simply stupid. When you or I object to spending more than we already pay, Vice President Joe Biden calls us unpatriotic.
Even more galling, Republican senators Orrin Hatch and Lindsay Graham insist on defending Geithner as “very competent” and “the right man.” Let’s ignore Geithner’s terrible role in supporting financial giant Citigroup’s spending spree and engineering a $52 billion federal bailout for the struggling company. Those who take his tax evasion and track record of failure seriously are guilty of “thinking.”[ing] in miniature political terms,” Graham lectured.
Tell that to the millions of self-employed entrepreneurs across the country who toil to pay quarterly dues and keep their records organized down to the hundredth decimal place. It is because of such ineptitude that Washington Republicans earned the nickname “The Party of Stupids.”
Fuck it, go up: it’s the Washington way.
