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Why The Democrats Don’t Worry About Raising Taxes

January 31, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Obama administration 

An old question has at last been answered.

The question is: Why are Democrats  so willing to raise taxes?

And the answer is: They have no intention of paying them.

Despite  his failure to pay $40k+ in taxes (and his patent attempt to game the statute of limitations once he realized his “mistake”), the Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner last week largely based on the new President’s insistence that he was the only individual in the western hemisphere capable of leading Treasury during this time of crisis.

Now it turns out that Secretary of HHS-designate, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, has pulled a Geithner by suddenly paying, at the beginning of this month, $140k+ in taxes unpaid since 2005.  Senator Daschle’s National Taxpayer Union rating was  15% (which means that he supported 85% of tax raising proposals), only one point away from the lowest 1-14%  ”Big Spender” category.

As reported in today’s Los Angeles Times:

The bulk of the unpaid taxes — first reported Friday by ABC News — stems from a lucrative business relationship that Daschle began with a wealthy investor shortly after Daschle left the Senate in 2005.

That year Daschle was paid $83,333 a month — or $1 million a year — to advise a private equity fund, according to a confidential draft report prepared by Republican staffers on the Senate Finance Committee. The South Dakota Democrat was hired by Leo J. Hindery Jr., a longtime friend of Daschle’s, to consult for InterMedia Advisors. The private equity fund invests in media companies, including the Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson, the Gospel Music Channel, and Cine Latino, a leading Spanish-language movie channel. Hindery, a Democratic donor who made a fortune in cable television, also provided Daschle with a car and driver beginning in April 2005.                

Daschle estimated that 80% of his use of the car was for personal reasons. But he did not pay any taxes on the service until Jan. 2, 2009, when he filed amended returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Daschle this month paid more than $100,000 in taxes and interest for the car service, according to Backus.

He paid an additional $32,491 to cover taxes and interest for a monthly payment that was not reported in 2007.

Mr. Daschle hasn’t commented, but his spokesperson said that he was “embarrassed and disappointed by these errors” — an evocatively equivocal formulation for which she deserves a bonus.  No doubt he is embarrassed and disappointed by their discovery, but we will have to wait for his next press availability for additional information.   In the meantime, the dog ate my homework network has been mobilized and the finger of suspicion is pointing at some hapless accounts payable clerk who was on maternity leave.             

There is, of course, no way in hell that Mr. Daschle isn’t going to be confirmed.  Anyone who thinks that the former Democratic Senate Majority leader —indeed, any former Senate leader of any party— isn’t going to be confirmed by the Senate will be interested in some of the very stylish flight suits for pigs that I have designed and patented.

In the District of Columbia, former Mayor Marion Barry, who is on probation for having failed to pay his taxes, has once again…..failed to pay his taxes.

Mr. Barry, whose NTU rating of 28% qualifies him as a “big spender,”  failed to pay taxes from 1999 through 2004.  A sympathetic judge ignored prosecutors’ recommendations and placed him on a probation that ends in March.  Now the Washington Post reports that Mr. Barry failed to file for 2007.

Unlike Senator Daschle, Mayor Barry was available for comment on the Post’s story.  He said: “”As with any American citizen, my tax status is a matter between the IRS and the taxpayer and not the Washington Post.”

Jim Iovino, who reports for WRC, the NBC affiliate in DC, covered the story:

Note to Marion Barry: Tax Day 2009 is Wednesday, April 15.

While we’re at it, Tax Day 2010 is Thursday, April 15.

You may want to circle those dates on your calendar right about … now.

Why the reminder? It seems the Mayor For Life didn’t file his tax returns (yet again) for 2007, according to the Washington Post. 

This news comes after Barry pleaded guilty in 2005 to two misdemeanor tax charges and admitted to not filing his taxes from 1999 to 2004.  So he didn’t pay most of the taxes he owed on more than $500,000 in income.  Big whoop, right?  If the nation’s treasury secretary  can’t figure out this whole taxes thing, who can?

Barry, who now makes more than $92,000 per year as a council member, had no comment for the Post and didn’t let on to when he might file his taxes.  

But seriously, who has time to file their taxes these days? Most of us are too busy getting pulled over, discovering a gassification machine and being robbed at gunpoint.  

Taxes, schmaxes. They can wait. 

President Obama will undoubtedly have something to say about this situation down the road, but right now he appears to be busy working on the wording for the statements explaining the necessity for making exceptions to his rule against hiring lobbyists. How was candidate Obama to have known that Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson was the only person in the western hemisphere capable of running Treasury for Secretary Geithner (ditto Raytheon’s William Lynn at Defense)?



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