“BUT I GOT A DRIVER AND THAT’S A START…”

1/31/09

So former Senator Tom Daschle has joined many of his colleagues, including our esteemed new Treasury Secretary, in having been caught with his hand in the tax cookie jar. It seems that former Senator Daschle, which our hell-bent on bringing change to Washington President has chosen to head the Department of Health and Human Services, paid about $140,000 in back taxes and interest for income that he failed to report when it was earned but was discovered in the process of vetting him for the HHS post. The back taxes were on in-kind income, the luxury car provided him by his new employer, an investment firm that doubtless hired Mr. Daschle for his ability to structure various financial derivatives, not for his ability to have people in Washington return his phone calls, no sir. But I digress.

Mr. Daschle’s tax problems are appalling enough. But what is especially galling, and elucidatory, is Mr. Daschle’s explanation for his “oversight.” He told Senate Finance Committee staff that he had grown used to having a car and a driver as Senate Majority Leader and thus didn’t even think to report the car on his tax return. (Incidentally, we are talking about the period from 2005 to 2007. $140,000 in taxes on a car used for two years? Wow! Must have been a Maybach, a Rolls, or twenty Hyundais. Some of my readers will get that joke, but, in any case, I digress.)

So Mr. Daschle’s experience in Washington had left him so isolated from reality that he didn’t even think he had to report some (approximately) $400,000 in income? He was so used to having his hindquarters smooched on the Hill that he couldn’t relate to the reality of life outside Washington, even a reality that involved being given use of a (n apparently very nice) luxury car as part of his compensation?

Was there ever a better argument for term limits?