J's Cafe Nette

Archive for January 14th, 2009

Bill Clinton had to try three times to get an attorney general confirmed due to nanny problems. The first two nominees had hired illegals to care for their homes and children and hadn’t paid their payroll taxes. As a result we ended up with Janet Reno, the joke of the administration for her utter and complete incompetence.

Now comes the same problem with one of President-elect Obama’s nominees, this one for the important job of Treasury Secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for himself for four years and employed a housekeeper whose immigration documentation lapsed while in his employ.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus called a meeting with committee members to discuss the matter inside his office Tuesday.

Geithner disclosed to senators earlier in the day that he had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, a last-minute complication in an otherwise smooth path to confirmation.

Sources say Geithner also hired a housekeeper whose immigration papers expired during her employment in 2004 and 2005.

The woman, whose name has not been released, eventually obtained a green card to work legally in the U.S., and immigration authorities did not charge her with wrongdoing.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters after the revelations that he still believes Geithner is “extremely well-qualified” for the post.

“There was a few little hiccups, and that’s basically what they are. I am not concerned at all,” Reid said.

But an aide to finance committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the matter is “serious.”

A “hiccup”? I get hiccups all the time, but I pay my taxes and still get audited and I’m not the nominee for Treasury Secretary.

You don’t often see me use cuss words, but why in the hell was this not known until now? What about the vaunted vetting process of the Obama team?

Oh, he’ll probably get his confirmation because the electorate, in all its wisdom, made sure there is a bullet-proof Democratic Congress and especially Senate that will go along with anything. Bill Clinton didn’t have that luxury.

This should outrage every honest American who cannot afford a nanny or who has one and and makes sure her paperwork is in order; not to mention Americans struggling to make ends meet, paying their social security and medicare taxes every pay check.

I remember a couple of years ago a friend was worried about a mistake made on her income tax, causing her and her husband to have to pay $1,000 by a date certain or face the penalties.

Thankfully, they were able to raise the money, but they are just ordinary Americans trying to do what is right.

What a helluva mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and we aren’t even under his administration yet.

But wait! There’s more.

Incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended Geithner, saying, “He’s dedicated his career to our country and served with honor, intelligence and distinction. That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.”

“He made a common mistake on his taxes, and was unaware that his part-time housekeeper’s work authorization expired for the last three months of her employment,” Gibbs said.

“We hope that the Senate will confirm him with strong bipartisan support so that he can begin the important work of the country,” he added.

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, also defended Geithner.

“I still support him. I have no problem,” Hatch told FOX News. “He’s a very, very competent guy.”

Senator Hatch, I have always thought you were a competent guy until now. Now I think the voters of Utah need to get some younger, fresher candidate to take your seat.

Gibbs says this was an honest mistake? How do you not pay your payroll taxes and have it be an honest mistake? How can you be nominated for Treasury Secretary, which is the umbrella over the IRS and “forget” to pay your payroll taxes? What’s more is how can you be nominated two months ago and just discover it today?

As Hillary Clinton famously said about an honorable General Petraeus, “It requires a willing suspension of disbelief” to believe this story, and she is the expert at having a willing suspension of disbelief.

Gibbs wants strong bipartisan support. How can there be bipartisan support when the Senate is stacked with enough Democrats to run roughshod over anything? They don’t need Republican votes to pass anything, and if the Republicans know what’s good for them they will vote no on this confirmation. But I’m dreaming.

(Update): Via Power Line:

UPDATE: Additional facts have come to light that make this situation much more serious. Byron York reports that IMF employees received additional compensation that was earmarked for their portion of FICA taxes. Their incomes were, as the IMF put it, “grossed up.” Thus, Geithner accepted “reimbursement” from the IMF for taxes that he didn’t pay. Not only that, he certified that he would pay the taxes:

The IMF did not withhold state and federal income taxes or self-employment taxes — Social Security and Medicare — from its employees’ paychecks. But the IMF took great care to explain to those employees, in detail and frequently, what their tax responsibilities were. …

The tax allowance has turned out to be a key part of the Geithner situation. This is how it worked. IMF employees were expected to pay their taxes out of their own money. But the IMF then gave them an extra allowance, known as a “gross-up,” to cover those tax payments. This was done in the Annual Tax Allowance Request, in which the employee filled out some basic information — marital status, dependent children, etc. — and the IMF then estimated the amount of taxes the employee would owe and gave the employee a corresponding allowance.

At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, “I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.” Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn’t pay the tax. For several years in a row.

Now, that’s quite a hiccup, don’t you think? [Sue]

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I am so sick and tired of the Bush Derangement Syndrome that has permeated the left for the past eight years that I could scream.

I have just read this report and it sickens me that John Conyers is still after President Bush’s tail for doing what he felt was best for this country to keep it safe.

How soon we forget what this man has done for us with no regard to popularity polls or the fortunes of his party. He did it because he felt it was the right thing to do and because that is his job as President of the United States. In case we forget, he is to protect the people of this country and we have not been attacked since Sept. 11, 2001, when everyone in Washington was calling for him to attack anyone at the time.

The incoming Obama administration should launch a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials to see whether they broke the law in the name of national security, a House Democratic report said Tuesday. President-elect Barack Obama has been more cautious on the issue and has not endorsed such a recommendation.

Along with the criminal probe, the report called for a Sept. 11-style commission with subpoena power, to gather facts and make recommendations on preventing misuse of power, according to the report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee.

The report covers Bush administration policies that Democrats have protested for some time. Among them: interrogation of foreign detainees, warrantless wiretaps, retribution against critics, manipulation of intelligence and political dismissals of U.S. attorneys.

Mr. Bush has too much class to pardon himself, but he should. Otherwise he’ll be standing before the International Tribunal at The Hague, answering for “war crimes”. And don’t kid yourselves. BDS is rampant in Europe also, and they would love to put him behind bars.

This precedent must not be set and President-elect Obama must put a stop to this talk immediately.

Let President Bush enjoy the retirement he so badly needs and leave him alone.

Not too many years ago an organization was formed to make people stop harping on Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the Oval Office with a young female intern. The name of the organization was Moveon.org.

I suggest they take their own advice and Move on. Let this decent man live out the rest of his life in peace.

The far left is getting to the point of dropping off the face of the earth with their demands for a pound of flesh for President Bush, just as the far right is to the point of dropping off the face of the earth with their litmus test of what constitutes a “good conservative”.

We don’t all agree with our parties 100% of the time, but in the past, the American public has not stood for ganging up on someone. I can’t speak for the present because it seems BDS is eating them alive.

Mr. Bush, pardon yourself and anyone else in this witch hunt. It serves no purpose to go back when every legal authority said what you did was legal. We may disagree, but you don’t take a man who has served his country for eight years and put him in jail.

He wasn’t impeached and did not do what Nixon did, and Nixon was never taken to court, mainly because Gerald Ford had the foresight to know it would rip this country apart.

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