If ever there was a situation that explicitly exposed the deceitful ways within the Beltway this one is it. Let’s us “count the ways”:
(1) President Obama raises the bar on ethics and then proceeds to nominate not one, or two or three, but at least four nominees who in one form or another flaunt his so called “higher standards”
(2) Mr. Geithner, cannot even do his own taxes on Turbo Tax, so now as Secretary of the Treasury and the man in charge of the IRS he can oversee enforcement of a tax code that is a disgrace at every level – one that a free market, capitalist Republican Democracy should overhaul now!
(3) The under-secretary of defense apparently got a free pass despite his work with Raytheon. Have we not heard ad nauseum for 8 years about Mr. Cheney and Haliburton? Where does liberal Democartic hypocrisy end?
(4) Then the latest, the dear Ms. Killefer, from OMB who was to wear a new title of “White House Performance Officer” also can’t seem to get her taxes right. Who can blame her, most “nanny tax services” and the like charge between $500 and $1500 a year for tax support services. Does not make sense if you have household help making less than $1,000 a year does it? Change the rules and let household help be paid as independent contractors with 1099’s only. Maybe Mr. Geithner can work on this one with the free ride into office he received.
(5) Finally, and by no mean least, Mr. Daschle. A consummate political ideologue of the left, who has spent far too many years in office and in Washington DC was going to lead us to Real Health Reform. Hardly. His hyposcrisy is beyond grasp. Listening to media pundits tout his health care expertise and knowledge one was forced to ask: has Mr. Daschle ever written a prescription, ever held a scalpel in the operating room, ever faced a malpractice lawsuit (usually frivilous), ever made hard budget decisions as a hospital CEO or COO, ever worked the billing side to fight tooth and nail with payers (so called) such as Medicare, Medicaid, Aetna, United, Cigna, Blue Cross and the like in order to collect in most cases less than 50% of billed charges (less than 30% in the case of Medicare or Medicaid), ever tried to make sure the office or hospital staff had all the myriad of benefits that any major employer has to deal with, ever dealt with the myriad of federal rules related to OSHA, CLIA, HIPPA and the other alphabet soup with which REAL HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS must deal daily.
The answer to all of these questions is a definitive NO. Tom Daschle was a political insider, who had DEALT with health care constituents, but that hardly made him any expert on health care reform. The fact that he would accept a driver and limo for years without questioning that it was a “perc” is incredible and impossible to believe. Return from whence thou came Thomas, and may your driver come back also . . . obi jo
Nominee Slip Hurts Health Care Drive
The abrupt collapse of Tom Daschle’s cabinet nomination on Tuesday undercut President Obama’s mission to expand health care by depriving him of an unusually well positioned architect for a big legislative campaign and leaving him without a backup plan.
read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/us/politics/04assess.html?_r=1&hp
Daschle withdraws as HHS Nominee
“One cannot underestimate how widely admired Tom Daschle is in Washington for his integrity, for his public service. And many, many Democrats look to him as one of the favorite people. He’s got a lot of support in this White House, starting with the president,” said David Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN.
read more @ http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/03/daschle/index.html
Daschel made the right call
Embarrassing disclosures about unpaid taxes forced the withdrawal Tuesday of two of President Obama’s nominees: Nancy Killefer, who was to be the White House’s chief performance officer, and Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services. These breakdowns were hard to ignore, especially in the wake of new Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s failure to pay thousands of dollars worth of payroll taxes. Is it really so difficult to find appointees who pay their taxes in full like ordinary citizens? Killefer evidently failed to pay some “nanny taxes,” leading to a $950 dispute with the District of Columbia. Daschle, meanwhile, neglected to report three years’ worth of perks, and ultimately paid more than $140,000 in back taxes and interest after he was nominated.
read more @ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-daschle4-2009feb04,0,3832275.story