regarding Daschle (that's probably spelled wrong, I know)

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/02/03/daschle-withdrawal-hurts-obama%E2%80%99s-image-as-an-agent-of-%E2%80%98change%E2%80%99/

"Browny, you're doing a heckuva job!"

2/3/2009 6:52:12 PM

At least he can admit to his mistakes. Unlike the last president who kept saying nothing was wrong when we all knew he fucked things up. And no one will die from this mistake.

2/3/2009 6:56:40 PM

He admits a mistake after one of the many appointees he made withdraws amid tax evasion

Change we can believe in!


btw, I will believe in change when obama retracts this rediculous spending bill

2/3/2009 7:14:18 PM

Quote :

"At least he can admit to his mistakes. Unlike the last president who kept saying nothing was wrong when we all knew he fucked things up. And no one will die from this mistake."

Not a fan of Obama, but I have to agree. As Truman said, "the buck stops here."

2/3/2009 8:54:15 PM

oh knowz a president is not flawless and makes mistakes. TIME FOR IMPEACHMENT!

Dubya doesn't make mistakes we shoulda made him president for life.

2/3/2009 9:14:51 PM

fun stuff

2/3/2009 10:22:33 PM

Where in the article does Obama actually come out and admit error? It seems like both picks voluntarily fell on their swords to spare Obama's agenda from the inevitable distraction that their tax problems would create.

Which, again, they may be taking the stoic route and denying that Obama did in fact ask them to step aside, but I'm missing where Obama actually claimed fault in this article. About as close as I got was,

Quote :

"“The president has confidence in the process,” Mr. Gibbs said several times, while acknowledging that the president “takes responsibility” for the series of personnel snags."

Well, seeing as he nominated them...

I suppose at least he didn't insist upon pushing them through anyways, but, well - awfully low bar, no?

2/4/2009 12:43:37 AM

He actually said something along the lines of 'the buck stops with me, I <insert presidential phrase for error> with Tom <excuses on how it was an accident yada yada>'

Terrible paraphrase I know, but he came out and addressed it.

2/4/2009 1:54:07 AM

I admit he was refreshingly candid about it.

2/4/2009 8:14:26 AM

Quote :

"At least he can admit to his mistakes. Unlike the last president who kept saying nothing was wrong when we all knew he fucked things up. And no one will die from this mistake."

2/4/2009 8:36:39 AM

^^^ That may be true, but this article does a remarkably poor job of reporting it, then. Nothing along those lines appears, save for what I quoted.

Again, I'm willing to believe that Obama came out and said something like that to the press - or through his press office. But I'm not seeing it here (in this article).

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 9:53 AM. Reason : .]

2/4/2009 9:52:19 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28994296/

Also... it's not like Daschle was evading taxes. He made a mistake in reporting a job perk and later paid it off with no problems.

2/4/2009 11:15:33 AM

[waggin' finger]I did not have sex with that woman... Ms Lewinsky.[/waggin finger]

2/4/2009 11:20:46 AM

Quote :

"Also... it's not like Daschle was evading taxes"

Maybe nothing sinister, but these guys aren't doing their own taxes on TurboTax. Mistakes like that are inexcusable for politicians, in my opinion. So while I'm not suggesting he should be crucified for his mistake, admitting the mistake and withdrawing the nomination was the right thing to do.

2/4/2009 11:25:04 AM

I agree.

2/4/2009 11:32:34 AM

My personal gut feeling tells me that Daschle was evading taxes. I don't think the other guy though meant to not pay his taxes (the one that got confirmed).

2/4/2009 11:41:35 AM

I thought most of it was because he was getting free use of a driver that should've counted as income...

I could see how if you weren't receiving checks for it, it might have been overlooked as earned income on your tax return. I mean, how would his accountant know, without being told by Daschle, that exchange was occuring?

2/4/2009 11:44:22 AM

^ If that's the case, then my guy feeling might be wrong. I take full responsibility for my mistake, probably not the first one i'm going to make, and i'm committed to fixing my error in judgement.

2/4/2009 12:02:04 PM

Quote :

"Also... it's not like Daschle was evading taxes. He made a mistake in reporting a job perk and later paid it off with no problems."

It was quite a bit more than just the job perk.

He overreported his charitable donations and underreported his consulting fees. Plus it became obvious under scrutiny that his "consulting fees" were equivalent to lobbying on the part of health care companies looking to gain from his reform ideas.

$140K in back taxes is more than a simple oversite.

2/4/2009 12:14:46 PM

I like that Obama so directly and succinctly owned up to the mistake. It is refreshing. It's tough to eat crow like that, can't imagine doing it in on such a huge stage. He's still got a lot to learn but if he stays honest and attentive like he's doing...the mistakes are forgivable, it's the actions afterward that will say something.

2/4/2009 1:43:01 PM

Geithner was evading. He filed a request to recieve the other half of the SE taxes owed. He was reminded of his obligation a couple of different ways. Then he did his own return and tried to rig it. There's your Treasury Secretary.

2/4/2009 1:43:03 PM

Yes, I agree that he might have been although we will never know if it was on purpose or not. This is small potatoes when it comes to Geithner's total tax bill paid. It may just be an oversight, or at worse this just exemplified that no one likes doing their taxes and everyone tries to slip things by where possible.

Everyone acts very holier-than-thou but I'd wager that not many people's taxes would stand up to this kind of uber scrutiny without finding a few lapses.

2/4/2009 1:57:43 PM

Not everybody is suited to be the Treasury Secretary.

It certainly looks bad when a guy with glaring tax issues is in charge of overseeing the IRS.

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 2:12 PM. Reason : 2]

2/4/2009 2:12:06 PM

^^^^I think it's refreshing he owned up to the mistake. But it shouldn't be. I'm not going to applaud him for doing something that should be a given.

^^Millions and millions of people file their taxes properly every year. People aren't "holier-than-thou." They're pissed off. I'm personally concerned that anybody would find cheating of this kind tolerable.

All these fuckers should have to pay what they owe and then some and be punished with some four thousand hours of community service.

2/4/2009 2:47:36 PM

Apparently tax evasion is no longer a serious offense if you've got the right connections. If a common citizen did what Geithner and Daschle did, they would be sitting behind bars. Is the idiot Biden going to chide Obama's appointees for not being patriotic and paying more taxes?

2/4/2009 3:11:03 PM

sitting behind bars my ass, there's tons of people that get investigated by the IRS for fucking up or making mistakes whether on purpose or not for taxes. They pay those back taxes accordingly. The same happened to Geithner. Don't start slinging the whole behind bars nonsense for the real criminials

2/4/2009 3:14:25 PM

The vast majority of even egregious tax offenders don't ever spend time in jail.

2/4/2009 3:50:55 PM

the entire situation reflects on how convoluted our tax code can be at times

2/4/2009 3:52:04 PM

Quote :

"my guy feeling might be wrong."

2/4/2009 4:10:09 PM

this is why we need the Fair Tax

2/4/2009 4:43:39 PM

^^ lol

2/4/2009 4:53:03 PM

We do need the Fair Tax, but it would make it harder for politicians to get elected by promising people somebody else's money.

2/4/2009 5:06:31 PM

has he admitted that the surge worked yet or is he still in denial about that?

2/4/2009 6:27:42 PM

Have the neocons admitted that the Iraq war was a mistake or are they still in denial about that?

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 6:33 PM. Reason : 2]

2/4/2009 6:33:18 PM

is this thread about the neocons? no because there are about 25,000 threads about how the iraq war sucks and bush sucking...go bttt one of those if you want to obsess over that

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 6:50 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2009 6:48:00 PM

^^^ Obama was never in "denial" about the surge.

It looks like you're still in denial about the failure of neocon philosophy though.

2/4/2009 7:26:51 PM

Quote :

"Geithner was evading. He filed a request to recieve the other half of the SE taxes owed. He was reminded of his obligation a couple of different ways. Then he did his own return and tried to rig it. There's your Treasury Secretary."

that's not how it happened at all with him.

basically he underpaid his taxes in (something like) 2001-2004. the irs told him about his underpayment of taxes for 2003-2004 in 2006. he paid those taxes then. then when he was being considered for the appointment to treasury he paid the 2001-2002 amount (which the irs never even requested). again this was no secret and there was no coverup. his tax situation was strange. and yeah maybe he should have known more about his situation than he did. negligence maybe. evasion, no.


daschle is an entirely different story though. but i think the tax issue is the less important issue with daschle. his lobbying ties were more troubling.

Quote :

"We do need the Fair Tax, but it would make it harder for politicians to get elected by promising people somebody else's money."

not really. isn't there a refund involved with the fairtax as well?

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 8:22 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2009 8:21:38 PM

^Geithner was told of his employment status & responsibility to remit the employer portion before he was paid. Either he received a 1099-misc with Box 7 income, or a strange-looking W-2 with no social security or medicare withholding. Both would trigger self employment tax in software unless he went in and overrode ... several years in a row.

Would you like to know why the IRS didn't make him pay for 2001-2002? There's a 3 year statue of limitations which they missed. Were he not in line for Treasury Secretary, he most likely would never have paid the balance.

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM. Reason : -]

2/4/2009 10:24:58 PM