Yesterday, tax-cheat-Treasury-Secretary Tim Geithner appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee in a hearing presided over by Democrat-Tax-Cheat-Chairman Charley Rangel. Geithner was vowing to hunt American tax cheats down who hide their gotten gains in foreign banks and make ‘em pay up. As “they” say, “Takes one to know one”, I guess. The irony though is almost stupefying. So much for the new President Obama’s vow to make this the most “honest” administration ever — like that could happen coming from a bunch of Chicago-pols, oh ya betcha — NOT! Michelle Malkin says that, “Wonderboy Treasury Secretary [Geithner] is in over his head.” Now there’s an understatement for ya! Also, Gotta love the New York Post’s take on the hearing:

Did he look Chairman Rangel in the eye when he said this?

Can he look himself in the eye at the shaving mirror each morning?

A crackdown on “tax evasion and avoidance”? Oh, the irony.

Only after he was nominated to Treasury did Geithner pay some $40,000 in taxes he blew off while working for the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2004.

And Rangel’s famous tax troubles are even now the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation – laggard though it may be.

Probity for thee, but not for me?

Damned straight.

After a short laundry list of the Team Obama tax-chiselers that have already come and gone they close with this observation.

Geithner’s grasp on his job we do understand, though: Somebody’s got to go after the tax evaders and avoiders.

Sort of like how OJ went after the real killers . . .

Maybe Geithner and Rangel should go get a room in Vegas or somethin’ . . . worked out great for the ‘Juice’.

At the New York Daily News, Michael Goodwin examines the effects of putting folks like these in positions that demand great trust, especially in times of great peril

Most will prove able and honest. But some won’t survive scrutiny for ethical reasons. Some won’t because they have no claim on competence.

Incredibly, Rangel and Geithner both fail on both counts.

Rangel has been in Congress since 1970, yet his Harlem district remains nearly as distressed as when he started. He is head of the nation’s tax-writing panel, but appears to have intentionally dodged taxes on $75,000 in rental income from a property he owns in the Dominican Republic. He argued for a tax break for a company whose head pledged $1 million for a college center named after Rangel.

Other issues include his below-market rents on the four apartments he got in a rent-regulated building, all part of a suspect trail that has led to an ethics probe in the House. An ordinary person would end up in a prosecutor’s sights.

So far, Obama has been silent on Rangel’s conduct. And he has put his full faith in Geithner despite a checkered past.

Geithner now preaches the religion of regulation in the financial markets, yet, in his former job, he was supposedly standing guard at the epicenter of the meltdown. As chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, he was the central bank’s eyes and ears on Wall Street. Apparently he was blind and deaf, to judge how the banks marketed toxic junk.

Meanwhile, Geithner’s personal tax history is shocking for a man now in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. His tax delinquencies, with interest and penalties, came to about $43,000, some of which he paid when he was audited in 2006 but most of which he didn’t pay until he knew Obama would give him a job.

I wonder how the agents who audited him feel about working for him?

Yet there was Geithner yesterday, talking about morals and justice and the “absolute right judgment” of the budget and going after delinquents. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

And we’re supposed to trust these guys to fix our country?

Geez — I need an Advil®!

Technorati Tags: Tim Geithner, Charley Rangel, House Ethics Committee, Team Obama

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