Another Day, Another Obama Cabinet Member Caught Not Paying Thousands Of Dollars In Taxes
Roughly $140,000 in taxes, to be specific.
Hope and change!
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s pick for secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, failed to pay more than $140,000 in taxes, mostly for free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by a prominent businessman and Democratic fund-raiser, administration officials said on Friday.
Mr. Daschle, concluding that he owed the taxes, filed amended returns and paid more than $100,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2, the officials said.
The car and driver were provided by Leo Hindery Jr., a media and telecommunications executive who had been chairman of YES, the New York Yankees regional sports network. In 2005, Mr. Hindery founded a private equity firm known as InterMedia Advisors. Mr. Daschle was chairman of InterMedia’s advisory board.
In a financial disclosure statement filed this month with the Office of Government Ethics, Mr. Daschle reported that he had received large amounts of income from InterMedia, including more than $2 million in consulting fees and $182,520 in the form of “company-provided transportation.”
The belated tax payments help explain delays in the confirmation of Mr. Daschle, a former Senate Democratic leader who had been expected to win swift approval.
So are we just going to let this tax evader join Obama’s cabinet too? Yet another liberal who was too good to pay his taxes like the rest of us until it became clear that he was going to get caught not doing so?
Geithner should never have been confirmed to be the Secretary of Treasury and head of the IRS. Daschle certainly shouldn’t be confirmed.
Republicans, grow a spine and kill this nomination.
