Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has a problem. He doesn’t like to pay taxes like the little people do:
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.
It remains an open question as to whether this is a “speed bump,” as a Democratic Senate ally of Daschle put it, or something more damaging.
[…]
The Cadillac and driver were never part of Daschle’s official compensation package at InterMedia, but Mr. Daschle — who as Senate majority leader enjoyed the use of a car and driver at taxpayer expense — didn’t declare their services on his income taxes, as tax laws require.
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.
That’s mighty nice of him to do that; it would have been better had he done it in the first place. But I think the most telling thing of all is the reason he never thought to pay taxes on a car and driver provided to him:
“Mr. Daschle told committee staff that he had grown used to having a car and driver as Senate majority leader and didn’t think to report the perquisite on his taxes, according to staff members.”
That right there is simply mind-boggling, and really points out just how disconnected from the real world even center-left politicians like Daschle are.
Look, not only do 99.9 percent of Americans not have a car and driver provided to them by their work, 99.9 percent of us don’t even get the car. Heck, about 20 percent of us don’t have health insurance, something that Daschle is supposed to be tasked with rectifying.
No wonder Congress is so tilted toward Wall Street — too many of even our progressive allies have no idea how the world works, or why it would be considered unusual for your company to give you a car — and why that would count as income.
Will Daschle go down in flames? No, of course not. He was a former caucus leader in the Senate, a Poobah Emeritus of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo. A few senators will make some partisan hay, but in the end, they’ll confirm him, because he’s one of them. If Daschle was some schmoe, he’d be doomed. But he knows the secret handshakes and everything. Plus, the GOP owes him for curling up in the fetal position during the AUMF debate. And I’m sure they’re hoping he will remain an invertebrate through the health care debate, when that comes along.
No, Daschle will go through. But let’s be honest, he probably doesn’t deserve to. At a time when Americans are suffering real financial pain from their health coverage, it’s ridiculous that the man who is supposed to fix that is as disconnected from that pain as can be.
Two thoughts occur to me:
1. Perhaps if our major public figures paid their taxes before they got nominated to cabinet posts, we could take care of all this budget defecit stuff.
2. I’m considering cheating on my taxes this year, in the hopes that it will get me nominated to run a major government agency.
After years of domination by Republicans many people seemed to have fallen under the illusion that leftist politicians had high moral standards than rightist ones. Those of us with a more libertarian bend will now sit back and watch as it is revealed that “ The new boss is same as the old boss” as they say. There are no leftist or rightist politicians, just politicians.
In fairness to Daschle, he was at the time working for Alston & Bird, and large law firms routinely provide car service (and free meals) to attorneys who work through lunch and past 8pm. It has been established that these perquisites (as well as free gym membership) are merely incidentals and not taxable income. This is true even though a really hard-working associate may end up eating nearly all of his meals at the office and never getting his own cab home. I have friends who have given up buying groceries because they don’t eat at home often enough to keep stuff from spoiling. Despite the saved money, I don’t really envy these people.
The car and driver dedicated to a single person is a new one on me, though.
Are we the last of the Americans who actually pay taxes? I wish Obama would just come out and say something about not allowing people in his administration that are unable to follow the tax laws that they put in place.
Pres. Obama seems to be having problems in picking people for his cabinet that pay their taxes.
I wish Obama would just come out and say something about not allowing people in his administration that are unable to follow the tax laws that they put in place.
Looks like if he does that he won’t be able to fill his Cabinet.
From Breitbart:
So, was her primary issue that she just was too cheap to pay the $900, or is this because she hired an illegal alien and payment of the tax would have forced her to commit another illegal act such as filing a false Social Security number for (probably a) her?
Nice group of people the President’s hiring. I guess paying taxes and obeying the laws are for the little people. Here’s an idea – how about hiring someone who washes their own clothes, buys their own groceries, and raises their own kids?
Fox News:
That’s a lot of money. I dare say it’s more than any of us here earn in a year. And the casualness that President Obama and others accept such things as merely a mistake that doesn’t reflect on the people who made them as an almost too casual creation of a privileged class. Out with the bastard. If he’s too good to pay taxes he’s too good to be in our government.
I’m starting to think that the IRS should annually audit the President, the Vice President, all Cabinet members, every Supreme Court Justice and every Senator and Representative as a matter of course. It looks as though quite a bit of money would be collected.
Yay!
Not that I wish anyone personal stress, etc. But the fact that he’s withdrawn his name – and still had to pay out the 140K$ – is good for America. A “clean break from business as usual” indeed. His tenure in Illinois politics was marked by accommodation of business as usual, and between pushing for tax cheats as heads of Treasury and HHS and putting through waivers for his own rules against lobbyists as soon as he made them (e.g., a Rayethon lobbyist for Deputy Secretary of Defense) it looks like little will change on that front.