Can you say that with a straight face?
Written by Audrie Zettick on January 14, 2009
At both the national and state levels, I find democrats making statements so outlandish it’s hard to believe they do it with a straight face.
At the national level, the nomination of Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary continues, despite his late payment of taxes (some uncovered during the vetting process for the nomination, some known earlier). Now an effort to expedite the nomination process has moved forward resulting in a hearing scheduled for this Friday-with less than the 7 days notice required.
- Max Baucus, Senate Finance Chair, is still supporting Geithner’s nomination. Somehow this all fits the Obama mission of “change.” Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs says Geithner is the “right person.” (Sounds like more of the same to me.)
At the state level, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell ignored his own hiring freeze-instituted because of a projected budget deficit of $1.6 billion —creating a new position for an ousted state representative. Dan Surra will receive $95,000 in annual salary as an advisor for “Pennsylvania Wilds,” a tourism program. Like many of his brethren, he lost re-election last year, likely due to support in 2005 for a 16-34% legislative pay raise.
- Rendell’s press secretary said this was not a make work post for an out of work politician and that it’s a wise investment. He went on to say, “it would have been tragic to allow that much talent to disappear from public service.” (Must do wonders for state government employee morale.)
All presumably said with a straight face.
Posted in: Obama, Uncategorized
Taxes Aren’t So Taxing For Obama Treasury Secretary Nominee
Written by Audrie Zettick on January 13, 2009
Just got off the phone with my Dad, trying to plan when I was going to drive 2 hours back to the family business to do taxes. You know, those pesky quarterly returns we do to file and sometimes make payment on various federal and state taxes.
Oh, and guess I need to do my own self-employment quarterly deposits. I have to because I’m no different from you and countless other self-employed or small business owners.
In between doing all that administrative work, I checked my twitter feed and found Michelle Malkin’s tweet on her blog post.
Turns out, if I was part of the Obama administration, I could have waited to worry about those pesky taxes.
Timothy Geithner, Barack Obama’s choice for Treasury Secretary missed filing a whole buncha taxes from 2001 to 2004. About $42,702 in total, of which $25,970 was paid shortly before being nominated in November, to be exact.
Max Baucus (Chair of the Senate Finance Commitee) and President-Elect Obama aren’t concerned with the oversight. It’s just “honest mistakes.” And honest mistakes they’ve known about for weeks but did not make public.
So much for transparency.
The Obama Transition Team claimed Geithner is part of an economic team that has “the best minds in America.”
I’m all for forgiving “honest mistakes” on personal taxes. But appointing someone who missed critical details time and time again is a different matter. Maybe this is what they meant by “immediate relief” for America’s families (as stated in the Obama plan).
Somehow I don’t think I’d feel “relief” but rather the wrath of the IRS if I did the same thing.
Posted in: Uncategorized
