Another Obama Cabinet Nominee in Tax trouble (Tom Daschle)
Herewe go again. Another Obama cabinet appointee, another scandal. You can now add Tom Daschle to the list of Obama appointees that include Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, and Rahm Emanuel, with ethics problems.
Tom Daschle, much like Timothy Geithner, has tax issues.
ABC News has learned that the nomination of former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to be President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services has hit a traffic snarl on its way through the Senate Finance Committee.
The controversy deals with a car and driver lent to Daschle by a wealthy Democratic friend, a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.
In another stunning comparison to Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle did not determine it was necessary to pay the taxes he owed until he became a nominee for a cabinet position.
During the vetting process to become HHS secretary, Daschle corrected the tax violation, voluntarily paying $101,943 in back taxes plus interest, working with his accountant to amend his tax returns for 2005 through 2007.
It is funny how a nomination to a prime federal position can quickly make a corrupt tax cheat suddenly see the err of their ways.
Did President Obama even vet any of these candidates? Surely a man as smart as Barack Obama did, and the fact that Timothy Geithner and Tom Daschle paid their taxes during the vetting process shows us an acknowledgement that they must have realized their wrongdoing.
So Obama did vet these candidates and determined their tax problems were not problems. He vetted Hillary Clinton and determined the conflict of interest with her husband taking in millions from leaders of foreign countries was not an issue, and he vetted Bill Richardson and decided that his ethics problems were not problems to be concerned with.
So I will give our messianic president the benefit of the doubt and give the point that Barack Obama did vetthese candidates. That makes the fact that he still decided they were worthy even more troubling. President Obama knew that all of these candidates had ethics problems and he still decided to nominate them. This from a man who ran on his judgement. The fact that President Obama decided he would still nominate ethically challenged people to the highest levels in his cabinet shows a lack of judgement that can hardly be comprehended. Or he is just incredibly arrogant. Or both.
The man who promised to bring change to Washington has failed to so. He has broken not just a campaign promise but the whole premise on which he ran and the whole premise that got him elected.
America's Watchtower 
It’s pretty hard to vett someone when you only see what you want to see. What is it about politicians that makes them think that they don’t have to pay taxes? Is it the “public service” part? Oh, I know. It’s the “I’m smarter than you, I have power, I’m up here and you’re down there”, part.
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It’s impossible to know everything in a man’s past, especially when you’re busy running the American Government! Even if Obama had the time to do long and intensive interviews, there’s nothing to stop his candidates from not disclosing the full truth. Obama has people to go through his candidate’s records, but even they miss things (obviously). The fact that Obama is willing to take personal responsibility for the errors says great things about his character.
What I suspect happened was, these men were called up and asked about their willingness to serve in the positions, and they immediately said yes. When asked if they had any issues that might reflect poorly upon their impending nomination, they of course said, “No.” They want the position, after all! Who tells a potential employer every bad thing about themselves?
The candidates then ran back to their accountants and asked them to go over their financial records with a fine toothed comb to make absolutely certain there were no discrepancies. Not because they knew for sure they did anything wrong, but because they needed to be 100% certain that everything was done RIGHT. And sure enough, all those little deductions that a few years ago seemed like they’d skate by a casual inspection popped up as red flags. Oops! A deduction that might seem acceptable to try for a government employee at a lower level might be an unacceptable risk for someone seeking a cabinet position.
So the candidates paid the government back for all those “iffy” deductions which seemed possible to their accountants at the time, if you looked at them just right and squinted. At that point, they thought that by paying the government back they were in the clear. And they hoped like Hell that the media would never hear about it.
But they were wrong. Their records became public knowledge, the media was all over it like wolves, and their tax reconciliation became a huge issue.
My question is this: With tax laws being as obtuse as they are, and with so many people dependent upon the service of a professional to understand and translate the laws for them, is it reasonable to expect that ANYONE will successfully pay EXACTLY what they owe?
Sure, the amount of money we’re looking at in these cases is large, but in comparison to what these men earn in a year, it’s probably not a higher percentage of error than I’m sure I’VE made in the past. Who hasn’t looked at a completed tax form right before sending it off and said, “Sweet Jesus, I hope I got all that right…” then signed it? I do it every year, fearing that a single mistake might bring me to financial ruin.
A second thing to think about is, as career politicians, do you really think these men are stupid enough to be cheating the government out of money that they could easily afford to pay? Does anyone think that their entire political career is worth the $100,000 they’ll get from cheating the IRS? That doesn’t make any sense to me, especially when they KNOW that their records can be opened up to public scrutiny at any point. It’s just not worth it.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Sorry to prattle – I guess I was feeling verbose today. 🙂
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Deb, you are kidding your self open your eyes and see this for what it is. CHEATING
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Deb is on our side on this.
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