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.

Another! Obama Nominee With Tax Troubles?

At the rate we're going, President Obama will out every last major domo in DC as a tax cheat. That's change we can be proud of.

Sadly, that's not his intent.

He's simply chosen a bunch of nominees who can't pay their taxes. The latest? Hilda Solis, whose husband had tax liens on his business for the last 15 years.

The husband of President Obama's Labor secretary nominee paid about $6,400 Wednesday to settle tax liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years against his business, the Obama administration told USA TODAY this afternoon.

The disclosure came shortly before a scheduled 2 p.m. meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will vote on Rep. Hilda Solis' nomination as labor secretary. The hearing was postponed; no reason was immediately revealed.

Los Angeles County records showed 15 outstanding state and county tax liens against Sam Sayyad and his auto repair business, totaling $7,630. Two other liens worth $981 were released in 1999 after Sayyad repaid the taxes owed, according to county records.

Solis' financial disclosures list Sayyad's business, Sam's Foreign and Domestic Auto Center, as one of the couple's main assets, worth between $50,000 and $100,000. The disclosure form Solis filed after her nomination also lists bank accounts containing between $250,000 and $500,000.

Solis and Sayyad were unaware of the liens until USA TODAY asked about them Tuesday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. He said Sayyad paid about $6,400 to Los Angeles County on Wednesday to settle the liens, but he plans to appeal.

Vietor said Sayyad believes he had already paid all of his taxes in full. He said Solis had no reason to know of the liens because her husband's business is a sole proprietorship.

That last bit will depend on how their taxes were prepared and what Solis knew of her husband's business operations.

The Senate may finally get around to holding hearings on Solis today, even though Solis hasn't exactly been forthcoming over her role in American Rights at Work, a pro-union group. She was the Treasurer of the organization, but claims that she wasn't involved in direct lobbying. Given that lobbyists for an organization relies upon the Treasurer appropriating money for such actions, Solis and her supporters are reaching.

The White House has already said that she wouldn't recuse herself from decisions on Card Check even though ARW lobbied for it. At the same time, Solis didn't disclose her uncompensated service with ARW for three years, which he claims was an unintentional oversight.

What is it with all these Democrats claiming unintentional oversight when it comes to paying taxes, ethics rules, and law and order.

You'd think that they're saying one thing and doing another.

You'd be right.

They are.