Integrity Impairment

Any and all skills, experience, knowledge, management capabilities, commitments and promises, and any financial, economic and banking expertise, are completely overwhelmed and impaired within the mind of Obama's nominee for Secretary of the US Treasury, Tim Geithner.

Geithner is incapable of fulfilling the obligations and responsibilities of the US Treasurer.

Impaired integrity obviates Geithner's swearing-in process.

Swearing in a man of impaired integrity does not qualify him to be entrusted and left alone to control the finances and economy of the US. His on-the-job performance, his handling of duties daily, and his satisfying of his job's obligations are bound to be carried through with malfeasance.

Why It Matters To You

This is the stuff of confidence-destruction. It will lead to the financial markets' continuing decline. People only invest when they trust the systems that they are investing in.

Click here to read a brief biography.	Tim Geithner was appointed by Obama as Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner has held positions with the I.M.F, he was a senior official in the Treasury Department under Clinton, and for the past five years he has been the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. With that professional profile, tax transgressions are tough to excuse.

Tim Geithner is a wealthy, well-educated and experienced financial expert who knowingly failed to pay his taxes. He paid some of what he owed after being caught, but failed to pay other amounts due because he knew those were barred from forced collection due to statutes of limitations having passed. He paid those only recently when he he was certain that the issue of his tax cheating would raise conflicts during his confirmation hearings for Secretary of the US Treasury. Click here for a brief summary of Geithner's tax transgressions.
Even the New York Times has raised objections to Geithner's potential appointment. It reports that "...other tax issues also surfaced during the BO team's vetting. These include the fact that Geithner used his child's time at overnight camps in 2001, 2004 and 2005 to calculate certain dependent-care tax deductions. Sleep-away camps do not qualify. Amended tax returns recently filed by Geithner include $4,334 in additional taxes and $1,232 in interest for infractions such as an early-withdrawal penalty from a retirement plan, an improper small-business deduction, a charitable-contribution deduction for ineligible items, and the expensing of utility costs that went for personal use".
Geithner has demonstrated that he lacks judgment and integrity characteristics needed by anyone required to fulfill the responsibilities of the Secretary of the Treasury. He would be in charge of the US Department of Revenue and its functioning unit, the Internal Revenue Service.
Geithner is either too stupid or too crooked to control, direct, and manage the US Treasury and its Department of Revenue and its Internal Revenue Service.
Geithner is incompetent or unethical. If he made an innocent mistake, he is incompetent. If he was dishonest it is not a mistake, and he is unethical. In both cases, he should not become Secretary of the Treasury. If Americans care not for this, America is passed its greatness.
Obama said in Geithner's defense that these items "are small mistakes that many people routinely make. What's the big deal?"
The Obama transition office issued a statement identifying Geithner's underpayment of taxes "honest mistakes." Obama himself said it was "innocent." Where does BO come from? Yes, we never did learn that.
A concise factual report on Geithner’s tax transgressions, compiled and released by the Senate Finance Committee, portrays noncompliance that is considerably more disturbing than his supporters acknowledge.
The United States cannot afford a Treasury secretary who starts out with a tainted ability to command respect and instill confidence at a personal level nor within financial markets and institutions.
The operative question is: Why would incoming President BO want to have to deal with this? The answer is that both he and Geithner live and operate by the rule that if they can get away with something, it is OK.

The following The following is a summary of Geithner's tax problems. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
The meaningful question is: Why would a man who fancies himself to be a high-level financial expert, works for the IMF, is the NY Fed President, and now wants to become the US Treasurer stoop to such nit-picking, penny-pinching, seemingly time-wasting efforts? What demons lurk in his mind? How will this mind operate at the top level of the US Treasury?
At the Senate confirmation hearings, it was revealed through documentary evidence that Geithner had not paid self-employment taxes for several years, even though he had acknowledged his obligation to do so, and had filed a request for, and received, a payment for half the taxes owed. The failure to pay self-employment taxes was noted during a 2006 IRS audit, in which Geithner was assessed additional taxes of $14,847 for the 2003 and 2004 tax years. Geithner failed to admit or his failure to pay, or to pay, the self-employment taxes for the 2001 and 2002 tax years until after President-elect Obama expressed his intent to nominate Geithner to be Secretary of Treasury. Also, that he failed to maintain the immigration status of a housekeeper who had worked for him. A January 14, 2009 Associated Press article about Geithner stated, "he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes several years ago." From the New York Times on January 14, 2009, "the IMF does pay its American workers an amount equal to an employer's half of the payroll taxes, with the expectation that they will use that to pay the I.R.S." From the Washington Post on January 14, 2009: "Documents released by the Finance committee documented the errors made by Geithner. One showed his signature on a tax worksheet that states that he has an 'obligation of the U.S. Social Security tax, which I will pay on my fund income.'" From the Wall Street Journal on January 14, 2009: Mr. Geithner "filled out, signed and submitted an annual tax allowance request worksheet with the IMF that states, 'I wish to apply for tax allowance of U.S. federal and state income taxes and the difference between the "self-employed" and "employed" obligation of the U.S. Social Security tax which I will pay on my Fund income,'" the Finance Committee reported.

Timothy Timothy Franz Geithner, Born August, 1961. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Peter F. Geithner, is the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham-Soetoro, mother of Barack Obama, and they met in person at least once. Timothy Geithner's mother, Deborah Moore Geithner, is a pianist and piano teacher in Larchmont, NY, where his parents currently reside. Geithner spent most of his childhood living outside the United States, including present-day Zimbabwe, India and Thailand, where he completed high school. He attended Dartmouth College, graduating with a B.A. government and Asian Studies in 1983. He earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in 1985.