Senators bump heads on the vote to nominate Timothy Geithner

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

U.S. Senators debated in the Senate Finance Committee today as they gathered to vote on the nomination of Treasury Secretary-designee, Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner from 2001 to 2004 failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes while he worked for the International monetary fund.

Senator Carper (D-Del.) who voted for the nomination said “I would just remind all of us as we sit in judgement of this nominee or other nominees in the future, none of us is perfect.” said Carper. “In our positions we need to serve as role-models and we have to subscribe to a higher standard than most ordinary citizens and clearly he needs that, he needs to learn that lesson.” he concluded.

Other Senators didn’t believe in giving Geithner the benefit of the doubt such as Senator Enzi (R-Wyo.). “In previous years nominees that had made less serious errors in their taxes than this nominee have been forced to withdraw.” said Enzi. He went on to say that he wasn’t convinced Geithner is the right man for the job at hand.

Though the nomination for Geithner passed, the process continues, and Senator Kyl (R-Ariz.) who is the Republican Whip will have influence on the decision. Although Kyl believes Geithner has good instincts, he is still not getting his vote. “I very much wanted to support his nomination but at this point I don’t believe that the requisite candor exists for me to indicate my support for him with an affirmative vote.” said Kyl.

Yesterday, there was a 3 hour hearing on the nominee, with the full Senate Finance Committee voting on the nomination today. The Committee ended the meeting by voting 18-5 in favor of Geithner’s nomination.

 

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