The confirmation process for Treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner '83 has been complicated by the disclosure on Tuesday that he had failed to pay over $34,000 in federal taxes between 2001 and 2004 and previously employed a housekeeper whose immigration status had expired.
Both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee have said these revelations, first made known to the senators in December, will not block Geithner's confirmation.
"Now's not the time to think in small political terms," committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, according to The New York Times. "I think he's the right guy."
Geithner has paid back taxes of $48,268, following investigations by President-elect Barack Obama's transition team and the Finance Committee.
Geithner failed to fully pay his taxes from 2001 to 2004, The New York Times reported. Geithner, who served as director of the policy development and review department for the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, told the committee that his tax error originated from the unusual payroll system required for U.S. citizens working at the IMF.
"It is fact that U.S. staff are required under a general administrative order of the Fund to be responsible for all income taxes due to state and federal governments," William Murray, the IMF's chief of media relations, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "Fund income received by U.S. nationals is also reported by the IMF to the U.S. government."
Dartmouth government professor Deborah Brooks, in an interview with The Dartmouth, compared the recent controversy surrounding Geithner's household employee with the 1993 confirmation battle involving former President Bill Clinton's first Attorney General nominee, Zoe Baird. Baird withdrew her nomination after the Immigration and Naturalization Service discovered that she and her husband had employed a Peruvian couple who resided in the United States illegally.
"[Baird] is a popular point of comparison," Brooks said. "Today, we may wonder whether she ended up inoculating future nominees against those same charges."
A focus on these kinds of issues is a natural part of the vetting process for cabinet picks, Brooks said.
"The vetting process is usually very partisan, so it's normal that such processes may occur," Brooks said. "I don't think this is an unusual vetting process, and it's the same that many other candidates and nominees have gone through in the past."
Republicans will likely oppose the bulk of President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet picks, according to Dartmouth government professor Dean Lacy.
"The Republicans, like the Democrats in the past, are putting the president's nominees under a microscope for the public, even if the nominees are labeled 'centrist,'" Lacy said. "For the Republicans, many of the nominees they labeled centrist under the administration [of President George W. Bush], such as judges and attorney generals were, in turn, attacked by the Democrats."
White House Press Secretary-designate Robert Gibbs released a statement supporting Geithner on the Obama transition team's web site.
"The President-elect chose Tim Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary because he's the right person to help lead our economic recovery during these challenging times," Gibbs said in the statement. "That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed."
Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said it is important that the new Treasury secretary be confirmed as quickly as possible in light of the current economic situation.
"I am disappointed in the errors found in Tim Geithner's tax returns and other information, but I am satisfied that Mr. Geithner has taken the steps necessary to fix these problems," Baucus said in a press release sent to The Dartmouth. "That's why I intend to move forward as soon as possible with a hearing on his nomination. The President-elect needs a Treasury secretary on day one."
Attempts to reach Geithner through the Obama transition team late Wednesday night were unsuccessful.
Geithner's confirmation hearing had originally been scheduled for Jan. 16, but was postponed by Baucus, following an objection by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who cited scheduling conflicts, according to a press release from Kyl's office.
