Jonah Goldberg considers what it means when we give a free pass to a Treasury Secretary that avoided paying taxes he was legally obligated to pay:

Timothy Geithner, President Obama’s choice to be the next treasury secretary, quite clearly tried to defraud the government of tens of thousands in payroll taxes while working at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF does not withhold such taxes but does compensate American employees who must pay them out of pocket. Geithner took the compensation—which involves considerable paperwork—but then simply pocketed the money.

His explanations for his alleged oversight don’t pass the smell test. When the IRS busted him for his mistakes in 2003 and 2004, he decided to take advantage of the statute of limitations and not pay the thousands of dollars he also failed to pay in 2001 and 2002. That is, until he was nominated to become treasury secretary.

He also looks at the implications of this for financial oversight:

So, who cares if he breaks and bends the rules? Who cares that he took a child-care tax credit to send his kids to summer camp? He’s the right man for the job, no one else can do it, he’s the financial industry’s man of the moment.

This strikes me as both offensively hypocritical and absurd. Obama has made much of Wall Street greed. He and his vice president talk about paying taxes like it is a holy sacrament. They both belittled Wurzelbacher [Joe the Plumber] for daring to suggest that the Democratic Party isn’t much concerned with how the little guy can get ahead.

Heck, Obama and pretty much the entire Democratic party insist that they speak for the little guy. But it appears they fight for the big guys.