Geithner’s Tax Trouble, Paycheck Protection and Obama’s Science Advisor
Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner comes under fire for past irregularities with his income taxes.
The House of Representatives approves the misleadingly-named “Paycheck Fairness Act.”
NASA scientist and climate alarmist James Hansen sends a message about global warming to the White House via science advisor nominee John Holdren.
More headlines: listen to the LibertyWeek podcast.
1. BUSINESS
Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner comes under fire for past irregularities with his income taxes.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs Director John Berlau on why Obama should withdraw Geithner’s nomination:
“Treasury Secretary Nominee Timothy Geithner’s failure to pay four years’ worth of self-employment taxes for Social Security and Medicare is absolutely astonishing. And as more details are released, Geithner’s actions seem even more disturbing. According to the New York Times, Geithner still didn’t correct the same type of error for some years, even after the Internal Revenue Services flagged him for the failure to pay the taxes in other years. To have him leading the department that manages the IRS would be a slap in the face to the millions of self-employed Americans who fulfill their responsibilities to correctly asses their tax burdens.”
2. LEGAL
The House of Representatives approves the misleadingly-named “Paycheck Fairness Act.”
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the problems with the proposed legislation:
“The bill would pressure employers to pay employees in predominantly-female jobs with pleasant working conditions the same as employees in predominantly-male jobs with unpleasant working conditions. Moreover, it would allow people alleging gender-based discrimination to recover damages unavailable to people facing racial, age, or disability discrimination, such as uncapped punitive damages for unintentional ‘disparate impact discrimination’ (where a neutral employer practice negatively impacts more women than men, or more minorities than whites).”
3. SCIENCE
NASA scientist and climate alarmist James Hansen sends a message about global warming to the White House via science advisor nominee John Holdren.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman on why Holdren is the wrong choice to head the Office of Science and Technology Policy:
“Holdren’s gloom and doom prophecies are bad enough, but he compounds his folly by advocating radical, morally dubious remedies for his crackpot apocalyptic theories. For example, Holdren has advocated government funded sterilization programs and the ‘de-development’ of industrialized economies to ward off ‘ecocide.’ And he has complained that ‘people are the bane of a rational energy policy,’ by which he meant that his energy-rationing schemes to prevent ‘climate disruption’ are politically unpopular.”
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