Obama Cabinet Nominees Spoil New Criminal Rehabilitation Program

Just when we thought the highest ranking appointees in the Obama Administration were going to constitute the most elite criminal rehabilitation program in the nation two of the three charter members withdrew from consideration this week.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who failed to pay $43,000 in back taxes until his Senate hearing, was first to make it through the process in spite of the tax problem. Obama said it was no big deal and Geithner said he didn't understand that he owed the taxes, a bit scary for the next head of IRS. What would happen to you if IRS discovered you did not pay $43,000 over a four year period? Geithner gets to be US Treasury Secretary. You would get federal prison.

Then along comes Tom Daschle, the former leader of the Democrats in the Senate and Obama's nominee to fix the health care mess. Seems he was paid over $5 million for lobbying for health care companies in a couple of years though he never bothered to register as a lobbyist. That was okay with Obama. But IRS said he owed $143,000 in back taxes for failing to report a full time car and driver paid for by his lobbying firm. He paid that and once again everything was okay with our new king of clean government President Obama and he urged the approval of Daschle.

Would you get a cabinet post with Obama if you owed $143,000 in back taxes? Once again federal prison would be more likely. A third key Obama appointee, Nancy Killefer, picked for what he described as the most important new post in his Administration, the government's first Chief Performance Officer, then had to acknowledge she also owed back taxes but just $946.69, a miniscule amount compared to the tens and hundreds of thousands owned by the old boys.

Nancy did the right thing, she immediately withdrew from consideration. Thus one of the most prominent female appointees of Obama was the first to recognize her civic duty and dropped out. A few hours later Daschle followed suit, even though Obama and others all agreed it was not significant enough to warrant withdrawing from the race. So far the new Obama standard is key employees are okay as long as they don't steal more than $143,000 from the government.

On Jan. 21, the day after his inauguration, Obama issued an executive order barring any former lobbyists who join his administration from dealing with matters or agencies related to their lobbying work. Nor could they join agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years.

However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Before the ink had dried the first waivers of the brand new executive order had to be granted to allow lobbyists to join his staff in top agencies. Didn't Obama get a lot of mileage smearing John McCain for having lobbyist in his campaign?

It just seems that those campaign promises for a new way to govern free of the influences of the past don't seem so real now. A new level of ethics promised has not materialized. In fact, far more promises have been broken than kept in the early part of the new regime. If there was any doubt about this ask the United Auto Workers at General Motors. The union was one of Obama's biggest supporters and were promised a bail out for the auto industry and told by the new president they were the priority of his administration. Today GM announced one third of the UAW workers must be laid off. That does not sound like they are being protected by the new president.

Tough Sledding for the Obama Team

It looks like President Obama got two bionic tongues for the price of one as his greatest liability, VP Joe Biden, and his wife were both able to disconnect their mouths from their brains on the day before and day after the Obama inauguration. First came Jill Biden the day before Obama was sworn in as President when she was on Oprah and said Joe had been offered his choice of vice president or secretary of state, a slap in the face to Hillary Clinton who was not offered vice president and was given secretary of state. She got the job because Joe didn't want it? Try as they might to cover up the release of inside information it didn't work.

The day after the swearing in Joe was at a White House news conference when Obama told him to give the oath of office to the new staff and Biden quipped I don't have as good a memory as the Chief Justice. Of course this was a cheap insult tossed at the Chief Justice when he flubbed the lines during the Obama oath the day earlier. The president could be seen frowning and shaking his head at the cheap shot by his vp.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner has had a rather tough time in hearings when he denied knowing his housekeeper was an illegal alien, he said he didn't know he was supposed to pay $34,000 more in taxes and then he caused an international uproar when he said China was manipulating their currency. The first was dumb, the second was dumber and the third was the kind of thing you never say in front of the media but to the representatives of China first.

How is it he didn't know he owed taxes for four years when his employer sent him numerous reminders every year. He was an independent contractor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Even Joe the plumber, also an independent contractor, knows he has to pay social security and federal taxes and Joe is not going to be the next Secretary of Treasury. Since Timothy was audited by IRS and they required he only pay for the last two years because the first two years were beyond the statute of limitations, he only paid the last two years. It was only after he was nominated for Treasurer that he decided to clean up the earlier mess.

However, if he never filed a return, which he clearly didn't because he said he didn't realize he was supposed to pay taxes, and IRS had to audit him, then there is no three year statute of limitations. The three year statute only applies when the return is filed and is found to be inaccurate or fraudulent. There is a ten year statute and he should have paid interest and penalties on the entire four year amount. I think he was given kid glove treatment by IRS because he was the Federal Reserve President in NYC. Do you think IRS would let you get by without paying nearly $100,000 in taxes over four years, and then say you just owed $34,000? Fat chance. He should have said he didn't pay for the first two years because he was trying to beat the government out of their money. It would have been honest.