Barack Obama's supporters voted for change. I just don't
think the change they got was the change they had in mind.
In another area of stark contrast with the predecessor
administration, we are now witnessing one of the sloppiest
cabinet filling efforts in recent memory. One has to go all
the way back to Bill Clinton's tax-evading cadre of
attorney general nominees to get remotely close, and that
was a sublimely professional effort compared to what we are
seeing out of the nubile Obama administration.
Count 'em. We are now up to four in the illustrious
category of nominees to Obama's cabinet who have had tax
problems. Labor secretary nominee Hilda Solis is now on ice
"A Senate committee today abruptly canceled a session to
consider President Obama's nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis
to be labor secretary in the wake of a report saying that
her husband yesterday paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens
against his business — liens that had been
outstanding for as long as 16 years."
The problem here, at least in my view, is not so much that
Solis' husband had some rather antique tax liens hanging
around, but that the Obama administration's vetting process
has revealed itself to be decidedly incompetent. Or, more
accurately, arrogant, which really is just a subform of
incompetence.
Tom Daschle chauffeured himself out of the running for
Health and Human Services, but that was only after the new
Treasury secretary Timothy Geither, who also owed back
taxes, had been confirmed. Nancy Killefer, the nominee for
Chief Compliance Officer (whatever that is), also withdrew
her nomination after it was revealed that she had not paid
District of Columbia payroll taxes.
So what's the deal? Why are so many of Obama's nominees
having tax issues? And why was Barack Obama initially
ignoring questions about why so many of his nominees have a
hobby of tax evasion?
In an interview with Brian Williams, Obama did address the
latter question, but in a most troubling fashion
"President Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that he had
"made a mistake" in trying to exempt some candidates for
positions in his administration from strict ethics
standards and accepted the withdrawal of two top nominees,
including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the
first major setback of his young presidency."
It is clear the Obama administration knew about the tax
issues of Obama's nominees, but just didn't care. The back
taxes owed by Daschle came to light on Friday, but the
administration stood silent, content to let the process
continue, just as it did with Geither. It was Daschle
himself who chose to withdraw his nomination from
consideration. In short, the Obama administration has
willfully and systematically dismissed back tax issues for
its nominees as inconsequential. They not only chose
nominees with known tax debts, but then didn't show an
ounce of leadership when those tax problems became public.
The message is clear, no matter how earnestly the president
employs Newspeak rhetoric in a vain attempt to muddle it -
there are two sets of rules, one for us, and one for them.
If they truly believed there was one set of rules, the
administration would have taken it upon itself to weed out
the tax-encumbered nominees from the process, but they
didn't - and that speaks volumes.
----------------------------------------------------
Nathan Moore is a rare breed - a conservative thinker,
author and criminal defense attorney. He lives in
Nashville, Tennessee, and co-authors the political blog
http://www.MooreThoughts.com with his wife Sarah, and
maintains his own criminal defense blog at
http://www.moorelawblog.com .
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