With Timothy Geithner’s Senate confirmation hearing scheduled to begin again today, voters are evenly divided over whether President Obama should scuttle his embattled choice for secretary of the Treasury.

Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. voters say Geithner’s failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes in 2001, 2002 and 2003 should prevent him from being Treasury secretary, while the identical number (41%) disagree. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Geithner has paid over $48,000 in back taxes and interest, including $26,000 just last November, right before his nomination papers went to the Senate. As secretary of the Treasury, his job includes oversight of the Internal Revenue Service.

Just 24% of Democrats think Geithner should not now be Treasury secretary, compared to 59% of Republicans and the plurality (48%) of unaffiliated voters. Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats, 34% of unaffiliateds and 27% of Republicans think the nomination should go forward.

Forty-four percent (44%) of investors say Geithner’s nomination should be withdrawn, compared to 37% of non-investors. Forty percent (40%) of investors and 43% of non-investors disagree.

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Voters also see a double standard at work in the Geithner story – in a couple of ways.

Sixty-six percent (66%) believe there is a double standard for prominent people like Geithner and regular middle-class people who get caught doing the same thing. Nineteen percent (19%) don’t believe this is true, and 15% are not sure.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans see a double standard at play, as do 69% of unaffiliated voters and 54% of Democrats. Voters who earn less than $75,000 a year are far more suspicious of a double standard than those who earn more.

Geithner reportedly has no explanation for his failure to pay the self-employment taxes even though he was notified by the International Monetary Fund where he worked at the time that he was responsible for them and had signed documents to that effect. Obama continues to back Geithner, who was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time of his nomination and has been heavily involved in high-level government discussions about economic rescue measures in recent months.

Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters also say the media would be more aggressive reporting on the Geithner matter if he had been named by President Bush instead of President Obama. Fifteen percent (15%) think the media would have been less aggressive if he was a Bush appointee, while 29% say the coverage would be about the same. Six percent (6%) are not sure.

Republicans, as is generally the case, are far more suspicious of the media than Democrats. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Republicans say the media would have covered Geithner much more aggressively if he was a Bush nominee. Among Democrats, only 22% believe that to be the case, while 27% say the media would have been less aggressive toward a Bush nominee and 44% say the coverage would be about the same. Fifty percent of unaffiliated voters say more aggressive toward a Bush choice, nine percent (9%) less aggressive, and 31% about the same.

In a survey right before the election, 68% of voters said most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 51% believed they were trying to help Obama win the presidency.

These findings were consistent throughout the campaign season.

Because of the back taxes issue, the Senate Finance Committee delayed Geithner’s confirmation hearing which means Obama has become president without an approved Treasury secretary as he faces one of the nation’s worst economic crises.

Just 43% of voters say they have been following the Geithner story, with 17% following it Very Closely. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say they are not aware of the news stories about the embattled Obama nominee at all.

When Obama nominated Geithner as Treasury secretary just before Thanksgiving, 53% of voters didn’t know enough about him to have an opinion about him one way or the other.

Among those who did know who he was, 31% had a favorable opinion, while 16% viewed him unfavorably.

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