Speaking of Geithner, About Those ObamaCare Regulations....

Stephen Brill asks, why is it that Geithner's getting a free pass on the postponement of the employer mandate under the PPACA?

The explanation for the postponement was that the rules, instructions, and reporting forms necessary to implement the requirement could not be written in time. The Treasury Department has responsibility for that paperwork and has had three years and three months to get it done. Geithner was in charge of Treasury for all but five of those 39 months....

Can’t someone tell us why Geithner and his team couldn’t get their homework done in 39 months? Is 39 months too fast to be “thoughtful and careful?” What happened? Why wasn’t the White House staff monitoring them from the day the bill passed to make sure the work was getting done? What about the Office of Management and Budget, which was run during most of those 39 months by Peter Orszag and Jacob Lew (who now runs Treasury) and which is supposed to supervise regulation-writing at federal agencies?

Brill echoes some of Joe Klein's anti-administration rhetoric, but it is a fair question to ask: why couldn't Geithner get the job done, and why wasn't he held accountable for his failure?

In fairness to Geithner, the answer may be political - it may be that the regulations are in place, and the forms aren't all that complicated, but that the Administration was responding to political concerns and pressures and used complexity as an excuse. But as Brill points out, nobody seems to be investigating the issue.