I'm a teacher. I don't make a ton of money (thank God for college ball, cuz my umpiring is an excellent supplement), but I pay my taxes. Yes, I get a refund back, but I'd file diligently even if I didn't. I don't file 1040EZ, so I have a myriad of forms and other stuff to complete. I am SICK and tired of politicians and their not paying taxes, especially when they KNOW they have to and are simply trying to avoid doing so. It's no wonder why they love raising them, because they just decide not to pay them.

I like most of Obama's cabinet choices. He has surrounded himself with good people--a requirement of a good leader (which I hope he turns out to be). However, I drew the line with Treasury Secretary Geithner, who didn't pay several years' worth of taxes, then made up some BS excuse saying essentially, "Oops." he should NOT have been confirmed. I commend those Democrats, as well as Vermont's Bernie Sanders, for opposing him.

Now comes Tom Daschle, who intentionally didn't pay some $138,000 in taxes! (Anyone who thinks this was just a "mistake" is asleep at the wheel.) On top of that, he has several years of income as a lobbyist where he didn't report said income. What the hell is that? And can someone explain why he's even being considered for a cabinet position? Obama implemented a rule about not bringing on board people who were former lobbyists or involved with them, but then his aides said a waiver would be granted for Geithner's Deputy Secretary, and now the whole thing with Daschle and his lobbyist ties appears that it's being swept under the rug.

Can I just decline to pay my taxes and if caught, just say, "Oops"? I know the Senate won't have the balls to do it because of this BS policy of senatorial courtesy, but Daschle ought to be rejected. Actually, the president ought to rescind his nomination, but I know THAT'S not going to happen.

The more things "change," the more they stay the same in that damn town.

Good comment, I am suprised that Obama is appointing these guys with tax problems- kind if undercuts him though its not HIS tax problem, but it still looks bad. Maybe they need to vet more?? Hopefully this is the last one we see like this .

My issue with Daschle isn't just the failure to pay taxes, which is an issue for LOTS of rich people, who find all kinds of ways to skip out on taxes that average people would be crucified for avoiding (unless you're Wesley Snipes and advertise that you're a tax cheat), but that since he lost his US Senate seat to John Thune, he's basically been a prostitute for industry, and along with his lobbyist wife, has been vacuuming up as much money as he possibly could and accepting as many favors (free car service, etc.) as possible.

The man is a whore in the worst way, and it's really appalling that Obama chose him as opposed to say, John Kerry, who, obnoxious as he can be, has a far higher ethical standard that Daschle. I mean, what is Obama saying to us if he's nominated a man to manage the long-awaited health care overhaul when that very same man has been on the dime of health care lobbyists and corporations?

Daschle's nomination has become a total joke, but then if you want to talk about bad options, another is Geithner, since he presided over the meltdown on Wall Street. Yeah, he spoke out, but not early enough or loud enough. He and that boor Larry Summers were both on the wrong side of the financial crisis (Summers was a strong advocate of repealing Glass-Steagall), and they're once again proposing a very bad option with the "Bad Bank" instead of nationalizing Citibank and other failing banks, which is the only way we taxpayers are going to get all the trillions back that we're funneling to them. I know "socialism" upsets their dainty constitutions, but it's been happening for a long time now here, to benefit the rich, so the rest of us deserve to be helped out too.

I agree with you. I can live with a nominee who has his/her faults, someone's who's not perfect--who is? But these two nominations are bad, just bad; and with Daschle's background on which you so elaborated, he's worse than Geithner. I was even more disappointed when Obama today answered a reporter's question asking him if he stands behind his choice of Daschle. "Absolutely," was his reply.

What a shame.

To honor these fine public servants, I have decided to change my W-4 to eliminate my federal holding altogether, then I am going to not complete my tax return every year until I get nominated for a cabinet post someday. I'll then just say, "Oops" and apologize.

Bravo, fantomas, I agree with every word on Daschle and Geithner. Perhaps some of the Obamaniacs are ready to start being reasoning, active watchdogs/adversaries of this "centrist" Democrat president now?



Why, realistic [sic] Dems will tell you it takes a fox to reform the henhouse! Get back to us when that works.

Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation calls on Obama to let Daschle go:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/40406..._let_daschle_go


and even the NY Times:

Does any of this support the idea of a flat tax for all citizens?

Just wondering?

(Here's to hijacking the thread)

Best,

Drew

Daschle withdraws. Thank God the tax thing torpedoed him. HOWARD DEAN for HHS!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_on_...h/daschle_taxes


Drew, if we wanted a flat tax, Steve Forbes would be president. I'm a Soak the Rich guy, myself.

I'm not sure whether Obama canned Daschle or Daschle removed himself, but he wasn't a very good majority leader and he wasn't the right person for this job.

Obama and the rest of the upper reaches of Democratic Party really do not like Howard Dean for whatever reason. He would be a good person for this. If it's not going to be Dean, what very progressive, far-sighted Democratic figure, who's knowledgeable about health and human services, and in particular who's at the forefront of discussions around health care reform, could be nominated? I think we need to find her or his name, and bombard Obama-Axelrod-Rahmbo-etc. with it until it sticks. Otherwise I fear we're going to get more of this post-partisan Judd Gregg type crap.

And please, Harvard, call Larry Summers back to his gilded University Professorship. His shtick is really starting to wear thin fast!

And today "Performance Czar" Nancy Killefer pulls out, too, due to "tax problems." (Looks like our "Performance Czar" pulled out because of bad performance.)

What IS it with people who just can't pay their proper taxes?!? Either they're downright tax cheats, or they have the stupidest accountants in the world!

Two words for these idiots: Turbo Tax! I've used that wonderful program since it first came out and have never had a problem and never been audited (knock on wood).

If you were selecting someone purely on their positions on healthcare I would suggest Ralph Nader for HHS.

But I doubt Obama is ready for that much inclusiveness.

At least he would have a better chance of passing the sniff test on taxes.

A better solution to the problem with finding people not living in a glass house on the tax issue is to simplify taxes and aggressively revamp the IRS to collect them. Every citizen should be required to consult the IRS.

Increase transparency for corporate salaries and non-salary compensation. Tax aggressively progressively.

Stop assuming that just because someone is wealthy the amount of their income is sacrosanct. If you benefit more from the economy you should be taxed proportionate to that benefit. Didn't that income come, either directly of indirectly, from disproportionate use of the infrastructure? And why not up inheritance tax?

Employees do not get to work on their feet walking along paths that no one else has ever trod. Nor do all the other aspects of common utilities drop out of thin air. These folks income grows from publicly funded toil.

Crew Chief, you apparently missed Geithner blaming his "error" on ... Turbo Tax.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/t...t_n_159810.html



“I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

No, Bill, I didn't miss Geithner's comment. In fact, I mentioned Turbo Tax primarily because Geither alluded to the program when trying to use it as an excuse. Anyone who has ever used that program knows even an idiot can correctly do his/her taxes when using it. Heck, even George W. Bush could figure things out if he used that program!

It's so easy and it's pretty much mistake-proof. It literally asks you questions--about everything you can imagine--and your answers dictate what you may or may not owe in taxes. If Geithner hadn't used this or a similar program, his excuses would be more credible. He cheated on his taxes. Intentionally. He got caught. Now he's the Secretary of the Treasury and the guy who oversees the IRS itself.

Yup! Change we can believe in, huh?

From what I heard during the Geithner hearings, Turbo Tax is not sufficient for the type of taxes taht Geithner missed - IIRC his mistake was about Social Security and Medicare taxes, not income, and Turbo Tax (which I love, BTW) is not set up to determine one's obligations to pay those taxes, because it assumes you already have had those witheld, but it also warns you about that when you are using the tool. As I understand it, because Geithner was officially a contractor during the years in question, not an employer, the SS and Medicare taxes were not witheld.

As for intentionally cheating on his taxes, well, I guess I had your ESP. None of us can say what he was thinking when he completed his taxes those years. In fact, his mistake was so glaringly obvious that it would have been a ridiculous attempt at tax cheating, because he was declaring the income he made to calculate his income taxes, just not his Medicare or SS taxes. It isn't like he was hiding income in an off-shore account or using a fake SS# on 1099 forms to obscure the income.