NEW YORK, NY January 14, 2009 —Senate Democratic leaders are standing behind Timothy Geithner, despite embarassing revelations that President-elect Obama's pick to run the Treasury Department failed to pay all of his taxes several years ago. Geithner has since paid those owed back-taxes, but the revelation poses a huge liability since one of his new jobs would be to oversee the Internal Revenue Service.

Geithner is currently the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

He failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes between 2001 and 2003 when he worked for the International Monetary Fund.