Ethics and the new administration

Seems the president and his new administration have some ethics issues. First of all, there's their new Treasury Secretary Geithner, who was confirmed despite having "accidentally" forgotten to pay over $30,000 in taxes over four years.

Second, there's Obama and his VP misrepresenting the consensus among economists. Why would we think economists would support the stimulus when half of them think FDR's New Deal made the depression worse, and most of the rest think it didn't do any good?

Third, there's that whole issue with Obama's own ethics standards of not hiring lobbyists with recent employment that presents conflict of interest problems. He's decided that some exceptions are okay. One wonders why he even created such a rule, if he is going to immediately turn around and violate it. I guess he'll start abiding by it strictly next month, just like he advocates fiscal discipline, and will start on that right after his $800 billion dollar stimulus splurge.

Update 1/31/09: Looks like Geithner's tax evasion is dwarfed by another cabinet nominee, Tom Daschle, who had to pay over $100,000 in taxes that he "accidentally" forgot to pay.