The Washington Way

Michelle Malkin
1/16/2009

There’s an old saying from the bowels of the Beltway bureaucracy: “Screw up, move up.” Rewarding failure is an immutable trait of the bipartisan Washington political culture. Just ask Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner and the Senate Republicans who are blindly standing by him.

The Senate Finance Committee revealed this week that Geithner failed to pay some $43,000 in federal self-employment taxes for four separate years — and only coughed up the remaining $26,000 of that debt when he was named Obama’s Treasury Secretary-designate in November. The brilliant and meticulous Geithner didn’t catch the lapses. The Internal Revenue Service and Team Obama’s vetters did.

Recall that Joe the Plumber, an average guy with no Ivy League degrees in business or finance, was crucified for his $1,182.98 Ohio tax lien (the state had sent a notification to a prior residence he had vacated). One might give a common man some leeway for making common mistakes. But Geithner is no “common” man — and “$43,000 in unpaid taxes is a common occurrence” simply does not wash as a credible alibi. Supporters have dubbed Geithner “too big to fail.” Try “too smart to care.”

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