Tom Daschle, President Obama’s choice for HHS Secretary, today acted embarassed and apologized for having to amend his returns to reflect a failure to pay over $120,000 in back taxes. Asked about the controversy, press secretary Robert Gibbs simply said, “Nobody’s perfect. It was a serious mistake …” That a second Cabinet member in just a few weeks has proven to have recent tax problems doesn’t seem to bother Obama, who “absolutely” still supports Daschle for his Cabinet.
I wonder if Treasury Secretary and IRS head Timothy Geithner, himself a delinquent tax payer, would be so lenient on an average taxpayer who had fallen behind a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. Would Joe Sixpack’s tax issue be shrugged off as an “honest mistake”? Would the IRS collection department just chuckle and say, “Nobody’s perfect?”
No one can seriously claim with a straight face anymore that Obama has brought a fresh new style of governance to Washington. The first few weeks have already shown that it’s all just more of the same double standard politics, proving once again that all that “hope and change” hot air was just a campaign slogan and not a meaningful pledge.
And the final irony is this. Do you know who said the following on May 7, 1998?
“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ”
That’s right. Tom Daschle. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn tragically unfair.
llabesab
February 9, 2009
Did anyone out there take note that while our President said he messed up, he didn’t say how? Could it be that he “messed up” when he thought he could pull the wool over the public’s adoring eyes by installing another tax cheat; that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Based on his first 20 days, I submit that “..messed up” will become part of our every day lexicon and that text messagers will shorten such situations to an “..OMU..” as in Obama Messed Up.