A New Era Of Accountability
100 Days, obama 5:58 PM
That is what we were promised for over the last year from the Obama campaign. This was of course immediately followed up by the Obama administrations "Ethics Guide" on his first day in the Oval Office. One would think that it would be incredibly hard to fault Mr. Obama for signing such an act into place; well that was however until the last few weeks of senate and house hearings on his appointments. It would seem that the rest of the Democratic party has been playing by it's own set of ethics for the last few years. Four, count them FOUR, of Obama's selections for the nations top political appointments have been caught with, shall we say, their pants around their ankles once hearings started.
The first of course was Mr. Richardson. Once a presidential contender himself, and as many thought, a guaranteed pick for at least one spot in the Obama cabinet, his tenure as an appointee was short lived once stories of his pay-to-play sort of politics came into the public eye. Not that pay-to-play is anything new to Mr. Obama.
Enter Timothy Geithner, President Obama's pick to head up the US Treasury. While from the beginning there was some rumbeling about this appointment being that Geithner was at the help of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and had an enormous hand in the Bear Sterns debacle/restructuring/gift to Jamie Dimon and the JPMorgan family, there didn't seem that we should expect any hiccups in the confirmation hearings. Until we found out that the person we were putting in charge of the dept. tasked with collecting the nations most important revenue sources, federal taxes, in fact hadn't been very good at sending in his own tax payments. This was quickly brushed aside as a "mistake" and the confirmation process continued. Timothy Geithner is now running the very entity he neglected to pay. Ironic.
Then there is Nancy Killefer who was tapped to be the nations first Chief Performance Officer. While the exact duties of this position were still a little fuzzy, the main goal as set by the administration was to rate, investigate and improve the performance of the federal government. We soon found out that she probably needed to be looking into the performance of her own accounting skills because she too had some tax issues. Not only did she have a few hundred dollars in currently owed taxes but she also had a federal tax lien filed on her in 2005. I bet in retrospect, that few hundred dollars would have been a good investment to not screw up a federal appointment that basically entailed telling the government what they were doing wrong.
And last but not least comes former majority leader Tom Daschle. The third appointee to decide that paying taxes to the fine country that he swore to serve just wasn't for him. He was the nominee to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but withdrew his name on February 3, 2009, the same day that Nancy decided to duck out to tend to her own housekeeping issues. Like Richardson, it was long thought that Daschle would end up in the cabinet as a long time Obama supporter. Again like Richardson however, this was short lived once it was found out that not only had Tom amended his tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007, he knew about the discrepancies back in June of 2008, and for some reason didn't see it fit to address until he was being offered a new job.
The lesson here? I guess don't pay your taxes until you get offered a job by the entity you have avoided paying for years. Whereas no one can really blame Obama for these people not paying their taxes and being involved in not so up and up business transactions, what he can be held accountable for is standing behind them even after knowing full well they had done wrong against the country he was appointing them to serve. Perhaps President Obama could fund his 816 Billion dollar stimulus package in cash if he would just audit the governments own employees. That seems to be the only way to get these people to agree to pay their taxes.
The first of course was Mr. Richardson. Once a presidential contender himself, and as many thought, a guaranteed pick for at least one spot in the Obama cabinet, his tenure as an appointee was short lived once stories of his pay-to-play sort of politics came into the public eye. Not that pay-to-play is anything new to Mr. Obama.
Enter Timothy Geithner, President Obama's pick to head up the US Treasury. While from the beginning there was some rumbeling about this appointment being that Geithner was at the help of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and had an enormous hand in the Bear Sterns debacle/restructuring/gift to Jamie Dimon and the JPMorgan family, there didn't seem that we should expect any hiccups in the confirmation hearings. Until we found out that the person we were putting in charge of the dept. tasked with collecting the nations most important revenue sources, federal taxes, in fact hadn't been very good at sending in his own tax payments. This was quickly brushed aside as a "mistake" and the confirmation process continued. Timothy Geithner is now running the very entity he neglected to pay. Ironic.
Then there is Nancy Killefer who was tapped to be the nations first Chief Performance Officer. While the exact duties of this position were still a little fuzzy, the main goal as set by the administration was to rate, investigate and improve the performance of the federal government. We soon found out that she probably needed to be looking into the performance of her own accounting skills because she too had some tax issues. Not only did she have a few hundred dollars in currently owed taxes but she also had a federal tax lien filed on her in 2005. I bet in retrospect, that few hundred dollars would have been a good investment to not screw up a federal appointment that basically entailed telling the government what they were doing wrong.
And last but not least comes former majority leader Tom Daschle. The third appointee to decide that paying taxes to the fine country that he swore to serve just wasn't for him. He was the nominee to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but withdrew his name on February 3, 2009, the same day that Nancy decided to duck out to tend to her own housekeeping issues. Like Richardson, it was long thought that Daschle would end up in the cabinet as a long time Obama supporter. Again like Richardson however, this was short lived once it was found out that not only had Tom amended his tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007, he knew about the discrepancies back in June of 2008, and for some reason didn't see it fit to address until he was being offered a new job.
The lesson here? I guess don't pay your taxes until you get offered a job by the entity you have avoided paying for years. Whereas no one can really blame Obama for these people not paying their taxes and being involved in not so up and up business transactions, what he can be held accountable for is standing behind them even after knowing full well they had done wrong against the country he was appointing them to serve. Perhaps President Obama could fund his 816 Billion dollar stimulus package in cash if he would just audit the governments own employees. That seems to be the only way to get these people to agree to pay their taxes.
Posted by Jeff
on 5:58 PM.
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Right on the money. And we're only on Day 17.
Wouldn't you just die to hear what VP Biden has to say about all this?! He would be ashamed that these people have ducked their "patriotic" duty to pay Uncle Sam.
Maybe he can "do like President Roosevelt did in 1929 and get on TV" to denounce their actions.
But wait - then again, Obama's VP choice is a known plagiarist.
Maybe it's Obama's dream to make Washington less like it is and more like the mafia - and the way to keep the "insiders" at bay? Pay them off. Hire them. Buy their love.
Thank you so much for this post! I hope to see more.