A tax-evading treasury secretary?

I guess it’s an understatement to say that standards are somewhat lacking in Washington today.

Just before Barack Obama named Timothy Geithner to be his treasury secretary, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank quickly and quietly paid $26,000 in back taxes and interest due since 2001 and 2002.

Asked about the propriety of nominating a treasury secretary who was a major tax scofflaw, Obama characterized the eight-year tax evasion as “an innocent mistake.”

Geithner’s tax evasion can be called many things – grand larceny, highway robbery, white-collar crime, racketeering, thievery, swindling, cheating, defrauding, plundering the public treasury, fleecing, looting.

However, to call it “an innocent mistake” gives us an idea of just how perverted Obama’s standard’s of justice will be for the next four years.

Geithner, we’re told, is the smartest guy in the world when it comes to the treacherous waters known as the “Troubled Assets Relief Program,” in which the U.S. government agreed to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions in the biggest bailout in American history. He’s a financial genius, they say. That’s why he is absolutely needed to head the Treasury Department in the midst of a paralyzing national economic crisis.

Yet, we’re supposed to believe that he made a series of “innocent mistakes” by not paying taxes from 2001 through 2004. Then, even after an Internal Revenue Service audit in 2006 found him out, Geithner only paid up back taxes from 2003 and 2004. Only after being offered the job overseeing the IRS did he bother to pay the rest of his tribute.

Isn’t this a wonderful example to head the Treasury Department?

Will Geithner and Obama be as forgiving of ordinary American citizens who make such “innocent mistakes”?

Not only is Obama willing to forgive and forget, but so are many Republicans in the Senate. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, gave him a pass. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, put it this way: “If I was a traffic officer, I’d say he may have exceeded the speed limit, but he wasn’t weaving out of lanes, he wasn’t drunk and he wasn’t endangering anybody. He may have some explaining to do, but in the end, I think he’s going to be just fine.”

That’s a nice analogy. But tax cheats seldom endanger the lives of others. And whether or not they were drunk when they did their taxes is somewhat irrelevant.

However, are there any American taxpayers out there who feel comfortable with a tax cheat at the head of the Treasury Department?

Why all the excuses for this guy?

Why have other Cabinet nominees gone down for much less significant offenses?

It comes down to standards.

There aren’t any in Washington any more.

Barack Obama just announced to the world that being a thief is no barrier to running the U.S. Treasury Department. Of course, it may be a job requirement.

Moral relativism runs amok in Washington.

You know that if George W. Bush had failed to pay taxes for four years, Obama would not excuse that delinquency as “an innocent mistake.” In fact, he would be preparing a show trial for the ex-president and taking his measurements for striped pajamas.

I suppose the silver lining under this dark cloud is that for the next four years we can all count on mercy from the IRS. If we fail to pay our taxes and we’re caught, I suppose we can all count on getting the Giethner treatment. I’m sure he will give us all the kind of grace he got.

Right?

Yeah, right.

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