A Comedy of Tax Errors

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Thursday, January 22, 2009

Make no mistake about it: Tim Geithner made mistakes.

"These were careless mistakes," said the man who as Treasury secretary would supervise the same IRS he underpaid by nearly $43,000. "They were avoidable mistakes."

"These are disappointing mistakes," agreed Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which held Geithner's confirmation hearing yesterday.

"Tim has made some mistakes, which he has freely admitted and corrected," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) assured everybody.

But Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the panel's ranking Republican, was skeptical that "the nominee's actions can be explained as simple and common mistakes."

(More here.)