Tom Daschle

[Narrock]

[mappatazee]

why did you start another thread about it when you already posted in the other one? accident?

[Lueyen]

Narrock are you referring to something besides tax evasion?

[Arlos]

And to be fair to the man, as soon as this all came up, he immediately payed up, including all penalties and interest. He even over-payed, as he based his liability as if he'd used the loaner car all the time instead of occasionally.

The idea that anyone else would have been sent to jail for what he did is, I think, a fallacious argument. The IRS rarely tries to send people to jail, unless you can show a long term pattern of constant evasion attempts, or you can show someone was hiding illegal income. For the most part, when they come after you, if you pay them, that's that. Look at Wesley Snipes, for example. He only went to court when he got nailed for back taxes and then told the IRS to piss up a rope when they came to him for payment. If he'd just shelled out the $$$, I doubt it would've ever even made the news.

This is not to say I condone tax cheating at all, mind you, just that I think the situation has been blown out of proportion to some extent. That's also not to say I think he's a great nominee, because I have my own concerns about him as well.

-Arlos

[leah]

so is this back tax stuff the direct result of negligence on his part? like did he knowingly avoid paying these taxes? i heard something about it on NPR this morning when i was getting ready for work but i wasn't sure what it all meant.

[ClakarEQ]

Leah, I don't think that truth will ever be known but essentially he is saying he screwed up and since made good on it. The point however is, he of all people, should NOT have screwed up because it was pretty obvious it should have been paid.

The other issue with him IMO is he has been generously paid over the past few years and some of that compensation is from the organizations that he is now suppose to "police". So you've got a conflict of interest.

At the end of the day, this is really a pile of beans and bullshit because our previous administration had closer ties to corruption than what we're seeing here (Cheney for example).

However for a president that made the statements that Obama has made, IMO I'm sort of on the fence regarding this particular choice.

[Tossica]

Fuck Daschle.

[Lueyen]

I'm less concerned with Daschle then I am with Timothy Geithner simply because of the position he was appointed to.

[ClakarEQ]

I'd be curious what percentage congresspeople would fail a financial audit though. It just seems that even while some of Obama's selections are questionable, either he has some really bad luck and poor vetting processes or a large chunk of congress, while we know are corrupt, find creative ways to "mistakenly" not pay taxes.

Isn't every congressperson's tax's public info? shouldn't it be?

EDIT
He's cooked, withdrew his nomination

[Lueyen]

He's not the only one
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28994296/

[ClakarEQ]

Yeah I didn't think Killefer was new news though. That link is to Dashle though, so that is 3 out of how many (?) withdrew because of tax issues.

[Lueyen]

I thought it was only two, I believe Geithner has or will be confirmed.

[ClakarEQ]

No, that Arizona guy, he was nominated before Daschle I thought and bowed out from tax and possible investigation / indictments

[leah]

methinks mister president needs some better vetters hehe

[Lueyen]

Raul Grijalva? I don't think he was ever actually nominated.

[Arlos]

No, he means Governor Richardson from New Mexico.

-Arlos

[Evermore]

Mindia will take every opportunity for the next 4 yrs to bash anything and everything obama does.

[ClakarEQ]

Mindia will take every opportunity for the next 4 yrs to bash anything and everything obama does.

Yes but we all can say with some confidence that no matter how things go over the next 4 years, they can only be better than the last eight.

Arlos got the name right, i couldn't recall the detail.

So are congressfolk taxs public information? IMO it should be

[Diekan]

so is this back tax stuff the direct result of negligence on his part? like did he knowingly avoid paying these taxes? i heard something about it on NPR this morning when i was getting ready for work but i wasn't sure what it all meant.

Most rich people don't file their own taxes... they have paid accountants to manage their money (balances, investments, taxes, etc). It IS possible he didn't know, but it's also possible he knew everything.

[Arlos]

The biggest chunk of it is he was given use of a car and driver by someone that was a friend of his, and didn't report the use of the car as an income benefit, based on the cost it would have taken to hire the car and driver himself. That's the one he said he didn't know he was supposed to report as income.

If that's the case, I can understand it. You borrow something from a friend, you don't inform the IRS that you had the use of Device X for Y days and thus had income value equivalent to the cost of renting a Device X for that time period. At least, I don't, and I doubt any of you do either. I mean, if you borrow a pal's Xbox 360 for a week, do you put on your income tax forms income equal to the cost of renting a 360 from Blockbuster for a week? I think not. I suppose the reason he had to in his case is the value passed a certain threshold, and thus had to be reported.

If that was it, that'd be a pretty thin rope to hang him with, IMHO. I was actually far more concerned about the fees he'd earned from health care organizations for giving speeches to health care companies. Being familiar with the industry you're overseeing is certainly vital, but as we got driven home in a crystal clear fashion with many of Bush's appointments, being TOO close is a very very very bad idea.

-Arlos

[Jennay]

The sad thing is that people are already starting to pin this on Obama like he's the one who owed taxes. At least he's not pretending it didn't happen or cover it up. Daschle stepped down, now we can move on, get someone else and be on with it. Also I think that if the government can peek into our lives, financial and otherwise, we should be able to keep an eye on them too. I like that Obama is all for keeping everything honest and out in the open like it should be. As much as he liked Daschle, its gotta be hard. Noone is perfect.

[Evermore]

it seems the idiots trying to pin this on Obama are the Mindia's of the party...

so how much water will that cup actually hold?

[Narrock]

What I find so utterly hilarious is that Obama promised "change!" and "We're gonna shake things up in Washington" and all his other retarded slogans during his campaign, and now that he's in office he's surrounding himself with criminals. All this in just 3 weeks. Pathetic.

[Gypsiyee]

there's more change involved than you care to recognize, though - don't be fooled into thinking that he's the first to have nominees in this situation. the change, here, is that it's out in the open. he's acknowledging it and taking care of it rather than sweeping the knowledge under the rug and keeping it locked in a vault deeming them unaccessible for 50 years like past administrations.

to be quite honest, I like having a president who acknowledges errors and rectifies them rather than one who falls under some delusion of valiant well-made decisions in the name of protection. to me, that this has come to light only strengthens my belief that he is the right man for the job. he's not excusing people because they're people he selected - he expects the same, if not higher, standards of his people that he expects from everyone else. that's a good quality in a leader.

[Eziekial]

I think the real issue around him for consideration in this position is not the tax issue. That's a distracting aside meant to switch the focus of attention. The really pink elephant is how can a man who just got over $5M plus all kinds of "gifts" from "friends" head a department that issues industry changing policy remain impartial and act in the best interest of the country? The conflict of interest is by far more troubling than the tax issue and that is what I think he was trying to keep from the spot-light but would have inevitably surfaced.