Why do we need a tax cheat as head of the HHS?
Betsy's Page
Sure, maybe we needed Geithner at Treasury. Some well-respected people thought he was the perfect nominee and, in a time of crisis, the president needed to have the man he wanted at Treasury. But Tom Daschle? How unique are his skills? As Yuval Levin puts it,
<<< He is the co-author of a book about health care, and has certainly taken an intense interest in the subject over the last few years, but he was never thought of as a particular health care expert as a legislator, his background and professional experience do not otherwise distinguish him in this area from dozens of people we could think of, and he has never run anything in his life (HHS employs more than 60,000 people and in a normal year spends about a quarter of the federal budget). That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be Secretary of HHS—he’s as qualified as many cabinet appointees are when they’re chosen—but it means he is not somehow uniquely qualified in a way that should override other concerns about his suitability. >>>
And, it turns out, he has even more tax problems than originally thought.
<<< The report indicates that Daschle's failure to pay more than $101,000 taxes on the car and driver a wealthy friend let him use from 2005 through 2007 is not the only tax issue the former Senate Majority Leader has been dealing with since his December nomination prompted a more thorough examination of his income tax returns.
Mr. Daschle also didn't report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.
The Senate Finance Committee Report also notes that during the vetting process, President Obama's Transition Team "identified certain donations that did not qualify as charitable deductions because they were not paid to qualifying organizations. Daschle adjusted his contribution deductions on his amended returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 to remove these amounts and add additional contributions." This adjustment meant a reduction in the amount he contributed to charitable foundations of $14,963 from 2005 through 2007.
With the unreported income from the use of a car service in the amounts of $73,031 in 2005, $89,129 in 2006 and $93,096 in 2007; the unreported consulting income of $83,333 in 2007; and the adjusted reductions in charitable contributions, Daschle adds a total of $353,552 in additional income and reduced donations, meaning an additional tax payment of $128,203, in addition to $11,964 in interest.
On January 2 of this year, Daschle filed amended tax returns to pay the $140,167 in unpaid taxes.
The Finance Committee staff still is reviewing whether travel and entertainment services provided Tom and Linda Daschle by EduCap, Inc., Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, Academy Achievement, and Loan to Learn should be reported as income. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Daschle made use of the jet belonging to EduCap, a non-profit student loan organization. >>>
Remember, this is a former Senate Majority Leader. How does he just forget to pay taxes on over $80,000 in consulting income? Not quite a member of the hoi polloi, is he when what is many people's yearly income just slips his mind at tax time.
And the whole story of his suddenly realizing that, "hey, maybe I should have paid taxes on that free car and driver" in June last year is quite fishy. As Ed Whelan points out, this is right at the time that Obama clinched the nomination and that Daschle started talking publicly about how he'd like to be Secretary of HHS. What a nice coinky-dink of a coincidence for Mr. Daschle's sudden stroke of conscience concerning his taxes on that free car and driver!
Do the Democrats really want to be known as the party of tax cheats? That is what they will be if they close ranks to push Daschle's nomination through. And President Obama is the one who, knowing both Geithner and Daschle's problems paying taxes, cynically nominated them anyway or allowed their nominations to go forward in the hubris that such mundane concerns just don't matter for anyone that he cared to extend favor towards. And I'd be interested in seeing a timeline of when this information was made known to the Finance Committee. Was it after Geithner got approved? I just wonder if the Obama administration didn't make sure to get Geithner through before revealing that they had another nominee with tax problems. I would have guessed that, if Republicans on the Finance Committee had known that there was another nomination coming down the pike with a similar question, one of them would have raised the issue or leaked it to the press during the debate over Geithner. Now the press is out there to absolve Obama of knowing about Daschle's problems before the nomination but he still went ahead and continued the nomination instead of sending Daschle over to Bill Richardson-land.
Scrappleface has the best defense of the Obama administration.
<<< In office less than two weeks, President Barack Obama has already increased tax receipts at the U.S. Treasury with an innovative plan to get tax-dodgers to pay up, in full, immediately.
“The president’s plan is simple but ingenious,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, “He targets wealthy individuals who filed inaccurate tax forms, cheating the government out of tens of thousands of dollars. Then he just nominates them for cabinet positions. They suddenly see the error of their ways, and they cut checks for the full amount owed, plus interest.”
In the month of January alone, Mr. Obama has forced Timothy Geithner, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to cough up $43,000 he owed the IRS, and former Sen. Tom Daschle to pay off his $128,000 tax obligation. Mr. Geithner will put his tax-paying experience to good use, overseeing the IRS as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Daschle hopes his recently-good behavior will garner Senate confirmation as the next Secretary of the Health and Human Services.
“With the IRS underfunded as it is,” said Mr. Gibbs, “this collection method is much more efficient than dispatching field agents. Arresting these men, or compelling them to pay penalties would take years, and make them feel bad about themselves. The president’s method not only gets more money to the government to help our economy, but provides a self-esteem boost by giving these wealthy men important-sounding titles.”
The Obama administration will reportedly expand the program by creating hundreds, perhaps thousands, of additional cabinet posts, available to any rich person willing to “fess up and settle up” with the IRS. >>>
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