Last week, revelations came that Tim Geithner , President-elect Obama’s appointee to become treasury secretary, had not paid Social Security or Medicare taxes for years and consequently owed $43,000 in back taxes. After a delay of less than a week, the Senate Finance Committee began grilling Geithner today and, seeking to pre-but any questions about his tax snafu, the Treasury Secretary designate called the errors “avoidable” but “unintentional. That explanation seemed to satisfy the members of the committee who passed Geithner on to a full vote by a 18-5 margin today . The Fix asked readers to weigh in on whether Geithner’s failure to pay taxes is a fair issue to raise, given the possibility that the Senate confirms him to become one of the people tasked to lead the nation out of an economic disaster. An issue here might be whether Geithner paid any tax during the disputed years, or whether he merely miscalculated the amount due. Also troubling is that Geithner didn’t clear up all back taxes when this problem was first discovered– that he did not pay amounts unpaid outside the limitations statute does not speak well to the issue of integrity for a top federal official. read more

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