The Invisible Sherrod Brown’s Geithner Vote

I just called Senator Brown’s office in Washington.

The person I spoke indicated that “no one knows” how Senator Brown will vote on the Timothy Geithner nomination, but that Brown’s office has been getting lots of calls in opposition to it.

Of course, I expressed my strong opposition. (You can give him a piece of your mind at 202-224-2315, if you are so inclined, but be ready for some hold time. His contact form is here.)

I didn’t express what follows.

Sherrod Brown has something in common with Tim Geithner, as seen in these excerpts from an October 20, 2006 BizzyBlog post, which are based on press releases that originally contained pictorial and/or linked proof at opponent Mike DeWine’s web site:

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Yesterday (October 19, 2006), DeWine revealed a level of detail that I suppose Sherrod Brown either didn’t expect DeWine to respond with, or didn’t expect voters to care about.

Well, I sure care, and I believe that almost anyone who pays taxes does too:

Sherrod Brown Admits State of Ohio had to take legal action to force him to pay his taxes

“Sherrod Brown admitted the State of Ohio had to take legal action to force him to pay his taxes. As state officials confirmed, Sherrod Brown did not pay the unemployment taxes that every other employer in Ohio is required to pay. Sherrod Brown first said that he did not pay them for 12 years; he is now saying that he made a mistake and that he did finally pay them but only after the State of Ohio took legal action against him.”

“The facts are clear: Sherrod Brown didn’t pay his taxes. In fact, he didn’t pay his taxes for so long that the State of Ohio was forced to take legal action against him to get him to pay what he owed.”

“And now the best Sherrod Brown can say is that it was nearly two years that he cheated unemployed Ohio workers out of the money that was due to them.”

“C’mon, Sherrod. How many Ohio workers get to pay their tax bill two years late?”

“Do we really need a U.S. Senator who can’t even manage his own financial affairs? Can we trust someone who waits for the government to take legal action before he pays his taxes?”

“Nearly two years” meets anyone’s reasonable definition of “paid very late.”

UPDATE: Game, set, match — all you need to know, from the DeWine campaign’s press release today (October 19, 2006) –

• Congressman Brown did not pay taxes owed the state of Ohio on July 31, 1992, October 31, 1992 and January 31, 1993.
• He would have received notices from the state informing him that he was delinquent in paying his taxes.
• By December of 1993, the state of Ohio took legal action to force him to pay.
• The 1994 FEC April quarterly report shows that Congressman Brown’s campaign paid the OBES $2,116.45 for delinquent taxes.
• When Congressman Brown says that he paid his taxes after 4 months he is not telling the truth. He did not pay them for 19 months until the state of Ohio took legal action and forced him to do so.

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Senator Brown should be smart enough to know that being reminded of what he has in common with Timothy Geithner is not something he should look forward to in 2012.

But Senator, if you want to give people an excuse to bring it up again, that’s fine by me. Vote for the Geithner nomination, Senator Brown, and open season resumes. Maybe there are even some law-abiding, tax-paying Democrats who have a hard time swallowing the idea of a tax cheat and tax evader in charge of the Treasury Department who will want to hit you with a primary challenge if you support Geithner.

I would suggest not taking any comfort in the current betting that Geithner’s nomination will sail through, thanks to BO Republicans. Your fellow senator from the other side of the aisle realizes that this nomination is not going down well with Ohio voters. You may wish otherwise, but your vote is not likely to be forgotten.