Tom Daschle explained his withdrawal from twin posts as the point person on ObamaCare and secretary of Health and Human Services by stating he did not want to damage the President's universal health care overhaul.
Of course Daschle should have been more careful and concurrently paid the more than $100,000 he owed in taxes for the use of a car and driver. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner should also have known that he owed the IRS $34,000 in back taxes when he worked for the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2004. The question is why is Geithner, who now oversees the IRS, confirmed as Treasury Secretary and Daschle out as ObamaCare cheifain?
Wall Street and K-street don't have a problem with Geithner. Daschle, on the other hand, has worried a lot of drug company, HMO and medical establishment lobbyists with his book, Critical, that calls for a public health care program to compete with the private market. I recently opined on the need for such a Medicare expansion in an LA Times oped. Daschle's also talked tough about the waste among private health insurers, the profiteering of drug companies and the need for curbing excessive end of life care under Medicare that fails to improve the quality of life, but costs taxpayers a fortune. The medical-insurance complex had to be concerned about Daschle's power.
Geithner was said to be irreplaceable, so he was confirmed. Daschle isn't irreplaceable for health care reformers, but Obama would make a big mistake in appointing a replacement with any lessor convictions on the topic of a public health care option and curbing the medical-insurance establishment's waste and greed. Obama should send a signal to K-street, who no doubt had a hand in Daschle's demise, by appointing an even stronger voice for patients to the post.
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Daschle Pushed Patron For Obama Job: Dem
Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the...
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Tom Daschle Withdraws Nomination For HHS Secretary
Additional reporting by Sam Stein and Rachel Weiner WASHINGTON -- Tom Daschle withdrew Tuesday as President Barack Obama's nominee to be health and human services...
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Deliberating on Daschle
Critics of President Obama will use the Daschle incident to claim that Obama is not really about change, and is captive of the same politicians and lobbyists who have always run Washington.
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Danger: Creeping Puritanism
Tom Daschle's resignation should have been accepted, however, that of Nancy Killefer should have been refused. Responses must be tailored to the "sin." Not all imperfections make a person unfit for office.
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Democratic Tax Goof Follies
The Daschle-Geithner-Killefer tax goof is based on an almost-unconscious hope that the system they theoretically want to work ... won't.
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Daschle's Situation, and the Small-Dollar Solution
Like many decent people, Daschle got caught in a bad system that is so corrupted by money it hardly matters whether the money is from good people with good intentions or bad people with bad intentions.
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Tax Avoidance as the New "Sin"
The modern version of: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" has arrived. It is: "Let he (or she) who has not told his accountant to do whatever they can in order to pay the least taxes cast the first stone."
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Why Obama's Well-Oiled Machine Screwed Up on Daschle and Company
The vetters are not supposed to rely on let alone accept the word of the prospective nominee that they paid what they owed.
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The Untold Daschle Story: The Blacklisting of Progressive Economics
Though Obama won on promises to challenge Wall Street, there has been a calculated effort to stack the administration with the very Wall Street Democrats who created the problems he lamented.
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Daschle's Premature Dash
The only thing more implausible than believing that a multi-millionaire with national ambitions would willfully try to defraud the IRS of $140,000 is believing that a man like that actually does his own taxes.
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Are We Doing the Bidding of Conservatives?
Media coverage has been dominated with hysteria over tax mistakes already rectified, and claims of "pork" in the economic recovery bill -- all aiming to paint the new White House as hypocritical old politics.
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Progressive Agenda Tip #1: Pay Your Taxes
When our leaders, or even our potential leaders, fail to contribute to the collective good, it feeds our lack of faith in them as stewards of the incredible coercive power of government.
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Howard Dean for HHS or Health Czar
There's no way that Rahm Emanuel's animosity toward Dean can be explained away if they pass over him again, especially given his tremendous success at the DNC.
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Obama Considers Tax on Cabinet
President Obama is mulling a controversial new tax program that would require members of his Cabinet to pay taxes owed under the Federal tax code, the White House confirmed today.
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