Scapegoat

More on Florida 13th hopeful Christine Jennings and her campaign's payroll taxes snafu.

This week, Jennings was still paying penalties and fees to the IRS dating to the problems that started in early 2004. The latest check to the IRS was for $16,542 to cover penalties and interest for failing to pay any payroll taxes in 2004, her first campaign for Congress. She has now had to pay the IRS more than $85,000 since July 31, 2006, to correct the tax errors in both her 2004 and 2006 campaigns.

Another $2,000 is owed the state for failing to pay unemployment compensation taxes. New reports are being issued to the Federal Election Commission to correct three-year-old errors in financial reporting documents.

No one noticed payroll taxes weren't paid for over two years? That doesn't speak very highly for Ms. Jennings financial abilities, and she is by profession a banker.

Christine Jennings does have an explanation.

In an interview this week, Jennings said that she did not know at the time about the tax problems, and that they should not reflect on her own organizational skills.

"Anyone who has operated a business knows you have to select people you can trust," Jennings said.

She thought she had done that with her treasurer, Susan K. Flynn, a former chief financial officer who worked for Jennings at Sarasota Bank for about 10 years.

"I had complete confidence in her," Jennings said. "She let me down."

Maybe Ms. Flynn is at fault or maybe not. Ultimately Christine Jennings is responsible for the people she hires for her campaign and what mistakes they make if any. So passing the blame to Flynn doesn't get Jennings off the hook with me, or should it with voters.

Throughout Jennings' first campaign in 2004, when she lost to Democrat Jan Schneider in an August primary, Flynn took money out of payroll checks as required by the IRS, but did not send the money to the IRS. Instead, the money became intermingled with other campaign funds, and some of the money was improperly used to pay for campaign phone calls and other bills.

LOL, how did I know the payroll tax money would be used for Jennings campaign. On August 2nd, I blogged.

So why weren't payroll taxes paid? Was the non-payment an indirect loan to the Jennings campaign? An extra $100,000 does come in handy when you're trying to get elected.

I'm a prophet, and Christine Jennings is at the very least an incompetent manager of money. At worst, she's a liar and a crook. In either case, Democrats in the Florida 13th district would be best advised to nominate someone else to run in 2008.

Susan K Flynn if you're out there, I 'd love to hear your version of the story. Leave me a comment with your email address if you come upon this post.

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