Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Oh, “O” … Don’t sweat it.

Not like the MSM should bother vetting him.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama called disclosures about Treasury choice Timothy Geithner’s tax problems an embarrassment Wednesday but said Geithner’s “innocent mistake” shouldn’t keep him from confirmation as the new administration’s top official in urgent efforts to revive the U.S. economy.

The revelations that Geithner had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes several years ago derailed Senate Democrats’ plans to speed him to confirmation by Inauguration Day, but senators in both parties said the information was unlikely to torpedo his chances in the end.

Obama had hoped for approval by Tuesday, but senators now have scheduled Geithner’s confirmation hearing for next Wednesday, with Senate debate and a vote sometime after that.

Two Republicans objected to scheduling a confirmation hearing this Friday at the Senate Finance Committee after the panel disclosed Geithner had failed to pay taxes he owed for several years. Democrats were working to clear away the obstacles, holding out hope that he could still be confirmed the day Obama is sworn in.

The president-elect, asked about the situation on Wednesday, said, “Look is this an embarrassment for him? Yes. He said so himself. But it was an innocent mistake. It is a mistake that is commonly made for people who are working internationally or for international institutions. It has been corrected. He paid the penalties.”

“My expectation is that Tim Geithner will be confirmed,” Obama said.

He spoke at his transition office after a meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, about their recent trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kuwait.

Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee voiced strong support for Geithner, who was phoning senators individually in an effort to persuade them his tax problems were the result of innocent errors, not deliberate attempts to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service.

Senators’ comments suggested that Geithner’s tax troubles are being viewed more as embarrassing mistakes than as disqualifying misdeeds. That’s despite the fact that tax problems have sunk other government nominees, including Zoe Baird, Bill Clinton’s choice for attorney general, who stepped aside when word leaked that she had hired illegal immigrants as household workers and failed to pay their Social Security taxes.

“It’s an honest mistake,” said Sen. Max Baucus, the Democrat who chairs the committee, adding that Geithner’s confirmation was “a given.”

Geithner is “very, very competent, and add to that the country needs to have an economic team in place immediately to address the dire economic problems,” he said.

Sen. Jon S. Kyl, the No. 2 Republican, is blocking the hearing by insisting on rules that require a full week’s notice for scheduling such a session, according to an aide close to the confirmation process. Kyl’s objection was disclosed on condition of anonymity because the aide was not authorized to announce it.

A second Finance Committee Republican, Sen. Jim Bunning, was also balking at expediting the hearing.

“Senator Bunning did not feel it was appropriate to rush forward with the hearing this week in light of the late-breaking information,” said his spokesman, Mike Reynard. “He wanted more time to carefully consider” the disclosures.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the senior Finance Republican, said he was not inclined to oppose a quick hearing. He planned to meet individually with other Republican members of the panel to see whether they could agree on the Friday session.

“I’m not saying at this point it’s disqualifying,” Grassley told reporters in a conference call. “But it’s a little more important about income tax for somebody that’s overseeing the IRS than there is, maybe, for the secretary of agriculture, as an example.”

Whenever he goes before the Finance panel, Geithner — whose responsibilities in his new post would include authority over tax collection — is likely to face a grilling about his tax errors.

He failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned from 2001 to 2004 while working for the International Monetary Fund, according to materials released by the committee Tuesday.

He paid some of the taxes in 2006, after an IRS audit discovered the discrepancy for taxes paid in 2003 and 2004. But it was not until much later — days before Obama tapped him to head Treasury late last year — that Geithner paid back most of the taxes, incurred in 2001 and 2002. He did so after Obama’s transition team found that Geithner had made the same tax mistake his first two years at the IMF as the one the IRS found he made during his last two years there.

(AP)

WaPo:

Geithner Confirmation Hearing Postponed

By Shailagh Murray
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said the confirmation hearing for Timothy F. Geithner would be held by next Wednesday, but added that the delay does not signal that Barack Obama’s pick for treasury secretary is in jeopardy.

“He’ll clearly get confirmed — that’s a given,” Baucus told reporters this morning.
Geithner met with committee members yesterday to explain why he had made nearly $43,000 worth of mistakes on recent federal tax returns. He told the panel that the errors were unintentional, committed while he was working for the International Monetary Fund, which follows a different tax regime than U.S. companies.

But Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), ranking Republican on Finance, said he wasn’t so sure of Geithner’s fate. “I don’t know at this point,” said Grassley. “You want to wait and make a judgment after the hearing, because you don’t know if another shoe is going to drop.”

Baucus said no further Finance Committee meetings had been scheduled on the matter. “His accountant did not serve him well,” he noted.

Late Tuesday, Republican Sens. Jim Bunning (Ky.) and Jon Kyl (Ariz.), both Finance committee members, blocked Baucus’s request to proceed with a Geithner hearing on Friday. But few GOP senators seem prepared to vote against the nominee, currently the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Baucus announced this morning that he had scheduled the hearing next Wednesday, but said the committee could move more quickly if Bunning and Kyl retreat.

“I think he’s a good man. He really knows his stuff,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a Finance member. “My guesstimate is that he’ll be approved with my vote.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the second-ranking GOP member of the panel, said Geithner had made “mistakes” but said, “If we want perfection around here, we’ll never have anyone for any one of these positions.”