It can't be pure coincidence that several of Barack Obama's top nominees have had embarrassing tax problems. The latest offender, Nancy Killefer, Obama's choice for the new job of chief performance officer, withdrew today because she hadn't paid DC unemployment taxes for domestic help. And now Daschle's out too.
Obviously, whether you are in public service or not, you ought to know the basics of paying taxes and ... pay them. But if you're in the vanguard of "change we can believe in," there's no excuse for such carelessness. One reason for these forehead-slapping errors may be the strange relationship most of us have with federal income taxes. For the most part, taxes are something we think about as little as possible. Once a year, we are forced to make an unpleasant reckoning with how much we make, how much we spend and save, and how much goes to various governments. Often at this juncture, a willful ignorance imposes itself, especially when it comes to taxes that aren't automatically withheld. Do I really have to pay this or this, on top of everything I'm already paying? Perhaps, if I don't pay it, it will just go away! And you know, most of the time it does go away. Odds are the IRS won't find out. Until, of course, the president needs your services.
This is a childish and borderline-dishonest way to conduct your affairs, and it's fascinating that a bunch of earnest Democrats seem particularly prone to it. Rather than straight-up cheating or gaming the system, or trying to dismantle it outright (as we've seen Republicans do the past eight years, with varying degrees of success) 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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Nancy Killefer: Obama's Chief Performance Officer
WASHINGTON — Nancy Killefer withdrew her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government on Tuesday, saying she didn't want her...
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Chief Performance Officer: Obama Names Nancy Killefer
The Associated Press reports that Nancy Killefer has been named Chief Performance Officer by President-elect Barack Obama: President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a former Clinton...
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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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Killefer Wilthdraws: Read Her Letter To Obama
The White House has released the letter that Nancy Killefer wrote to President Obama requesting that he withdraw her nomination as chief performance officer. *...
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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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Daschle Nomination Withdrawal: Was It The Right Thing To Do?
Tom Daschle, Obama's nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, has withdrawn from contention after failing to pay taxes on a car service. The announcement...
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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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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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Why Is Daschle Out and Geithner In?
Daschle isn't irreplaceable for health care reformers, but Obama would make a big mistake in appointing a replacement with any lessor convictions on a public heath care option.
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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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