Thanks President Obama For the Laugh

I needed a laugh today given the recent Wall Street meltdown, and President Obama and the Administration didn't disappoint. The Administration will start going after international tax dodgers.

President Barack Obama's Treasury secretary says the administration will unveil a series of rules and measures in the coming months to limit the ability of international companies to avoid U.S. taxes.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that Obama will propose legislation to limit U.S. companies' ability to shelter foreign earnings from taxation in the U.S. He also said the administration will try to limit wealthy Americans' ability to use tax havens to avoid taxation.

He did not immediately provide details.

It's pretty hilarious that it's tax cheat Tim Geithner who is announcing this new plan.

Let's also ignore all the other Democrats that President Obama nominated for positions requiring Senate confirmation who skipped out on their patriotic duty to pay their full tax share, including Ron Kirk, Hilda Solis, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killifer.

Let's go after international corporations or individuals who haven't paid taxes because of tax havens or other currently legal setups that allow them to avoid paying US taxes.

Let's ignore that Charles Rangel sits on the House Ways and Means chairmanship despite failing to pay thousands in taxes and multiple ethics flaps.

This is one of the last bastions of a government entity looking to find tax revenue when none is forthcoming from other sources. The Administration is hoping to find a few billion more from these sources, even though that means that these corporations will find themselves paying more tax rather than investing the money or distributing it to their investors.

The dire fiscal situation is also why we see states beefing up their compliance efforts and pushing to expand sales tax collection of Internet sales. They're trying to wring every last dollar out of taxpayers to pay for their incredibly irresponsible spending packages.

UPDATE:
Slublog points out that Geithner also attempted to defend tax hikes on those making over $250,000. My irony meter is pegged right off the scale.

UPDATE:
Obama is full of laughs today. His latest? People need to buy stocks because they may be potentially a good deal. Why would anyone put money into the stock market these days with the Obama budget looming with all kinds of hits to various sectors of the economy - from hitting up the utilities and those that produce carbon emissions to the financial sector and investment houses that can't get their books in order to the health care field and drug stocks when he's looking to completely rejigger how those industries operate.

It makes little sense other than to say something today that is more optimistic than he's been in some time. Obama inherited a bad situation, but he's made it so much worse in so short a time frame by massively expanding government spending and then claiming that he will cut spending by hiking taxes and treating the end of the war in Iraq as a spending cut.

UPDATE:
Charles at LGF points out that Obama couldn't even get basic financial terms straight like P/E ratio. Just imagine the outcry if Obama's predecessor made that mistake.