Tax Fraud in High Places

Caroline Kennedy

Nancy Killifer

Hilda Solis

Tom Daschle

Timothy Geitner

Charlie Rangel

What do these people have in common?

They have all failed to pay their taxes. None of them is in jail. They are either in government (Representative Rangel), have volunteered to be in government (Caroline Kennedy), or have been named by President Obama for major posts in his administration. They are all Democrats. The Washington Press Corps thinks these Democrats not paying their taxes is not news for you to get upset about.

Would you or I still be free if we had avoided paying $128,000 in taxes like former Speaker of the House Tom Daschle? He is now a special advisor for a company that lobbies for powerful medical interests. President Obama nominated him to be the head of Health and Human Services. He pioneered the section of the stimulus bill that turns your health records over to HHS. Hmm, some cynics might think there’s a little conflict of interest when one goes from earning $16 million in a lobbying agency to heading the governmental bureau that his company was lobbying. The Washington Press Corps doesn’t notice any ethical problems in this. However, Daschle’s tax fraud problems caused him to bow out of the nomination in spite of the president’s public backing.

Then there’s Timothy Geitner, the only man in Washington who understands the bank rescue program that Congress passed a few months ago, or so we’re told. (As an aside, why would Congress pass a bill they couldn’t understand?) Geitner apparently understands TARP but didn’t understand that he owed income taxes. Now he heads up the Treasury Department which includes the IRS. He recently paid $34,000 in late taxes and $8000 in interest so that he could be voted into office by the senate, which saw no problem with confirming him. At least, Senator Bayh, who will be up for reelection in 2010, saw no problem with a tax fraud heading the IRS. But, then, the press corps informed us that it was just a little oversight, a little mistake. Would they have said that of an industrialist or major business owner? Would they have said it of you?

In most of the world throughout history most politicians have exempted themselves and their friends from living under the laws they make. Our nation has been different in that it established equality under the law as a goal and ideal, though as a nation we blew this in our treatment of minorities. We have tried to rectify that in my lifetime. Now the laws apply to politicians as well as the people. At least they are supposed to.

When laws apply to all equally, more of us willingly comply. When government leaders ignore their own laws, they undermine civic compliance and morale. This is one of the problems with both the illegal immigration issue and the global warming issue. Those laws apply not to the politicians or former politicians with their illegal immigrant chauffeurs or their super computers that use more energy than our homes do in a year, but to us, the little guys, the working stiffs, the small business owners.

The double standard makes us think, “If they can do it, why can’t we? What other laws are only jokes?”

President Obama promised us a change. He promised us transparency and ethics. Is open tax fraud the transparent change he meant?