Political Communication blog

I think it's quite interesting that this man who can't seem to pay his taxes would become the treasury secretary.

I did not know what would be considered the duties of the treasury secretary so I looked it up.

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury Web site:

"The Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government. The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt."

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/duties/treas/sec-treasury.shtml

I'm just not sure that a person who can't keep his own personal finances under control should be the advisor to the President about economic and other issues.
 

It makes me a little uneasy that Obama's chosen treasury secretary failed to pay some of his own taxes, after all it adds up to be $34,000.

Since the treasury secretary plays such a critical role in aiding the president with policy making and will be Obama's head economic advisor, I think its quite obvious things do not add up here. If he cannot handle his own tax issues, how is he supposed to handle America's issues?

But, I will say that ultimately I feel that we have to trust Obama chose him for good reason.
 

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I think that this is a terrible judgment call by Obama. It makes no sense to me
why Geithner would be nominated for such an important and vital position of the
administration when he is not acting ethically or honestly.
 

I dont think Geithner should be allowed to presume duties of Secreatry of Treasure because I feel he knew what he was doing and he knew it was wrong. Obama's people should have screened him better before nominating him. It is too early in the game to be making mistakes like this one! However, I do have respect for Obama for standing by Geithne, it really does show what time of man he is!
 

Honestly, I think this has been blown out of proportion a bit. This article really doesn't give a whole lot of background to the story. Geithner worked for the International Monetary Fund during the years he didn't pay self-employment taxes. He was required to pay them because the IMF is an international corp. that doesn't pay into Social Security and Medicare like US companies do. He didn't realize this, and apparently his accountant didn't either because there is an email from his accountant saying he wasn't required to pay the taxes. When the IRS audited him, telling him he owed them the self-employment taxes, he paid them what he owed (for 2003-2004). The transition team discovered he still owed money for 2001-2002. He then paid his back taxes and penalties. I don't think he was trying to be unethical or dishonest. I think he just made a mistake here. It's also been revealed that up to 50% of Americans that work for international corporations incorrectly pay their taxes so he is not alone.

Also, I don't think this means he is not an economic expert. You can have economic expertise and not have expertise about specific tax laws. He has been the president of the NY Stock Exchange, so I would assume he knows a lot more about Wall Street culture and investment, not about how to file taxes. Just like a criminal defense attorney might not know the first thing about environmental law but both are lawyers.
 

I do agree with Jemmye that Obama's people should have screened him a little better before they gave him that position, but on the other hand I don't think that it's Obama's mess up.Think about it do you really think that he would bring someone into office that's not honest? It would be silly of him to do that when a lot of people are just waiting for him to mess up.
 

Obama's team knew about the tax issue before they nominated him. I don't know that they knew about the maid issue, however. Although, even there, I'm still of the mind that it's being blown way out of proportion.
 

Yeah you are right Katie. It is blown out of proportion but people are going to try and find anything to make people look at him in the negative eye. Like I said earlier, why would he give him that title when he know people are just waiting for him to mess up. So until he really just do something that is considered so bad. They're going to find any and everything they can to make him look bad.