Spring Break
Obama admission big step for executive branch
Sean Reed
Issue date: 2/9/09 Section: Opinion
When it comes to President Barack Obama's cabinet picks, he really blew it. And he doesn't care who knows it.
Last week, President Obama went on record admitting that he "screwed up" with the vetting of a series of cabinet appointments -- a first for a president in office.
The apology came after it was discovered that three of Obama's appointees are not on the up and up with their taxes.
One of his appointees, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, managed to make it through the confirmation process, but his others were not so lucky.
Last week, former Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama's nominee for secretary of health and human services, took his name out of the ring following harsh criticism stemming from some $120,000 he faced in back taxes.
Soon after, Nancy Killefer, who was poised to become the first ever "chief performance officer" in U.S. history also asked that she be removed from consideration, for tax-related woes she chose not to disclose, although the Associated Press reported that a $946 tax lien was placed on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.
Naturally, Congressional Republicans jumped all over this one, as did The New York Times editorial board. And the criticism continued strongly until Daschle withdrew himself from consideration.
And they absolutely should have.
If you're promising to change Washington politics as usual -- as Obama did numerous times on the campaign trail -- the last thing you want is to be associated with a series of vetting scandals involving some pretty prominent tax cheats.
These recent revelations of tax issues call into question the sincerity of Obama's campaign promise to clean up Washington politics.
Now, it's unlikely that Obama intentionally picked folks with poor tax records, but clearly there was some sort of negligence on his part.
You can't promise to fix "politics as usual" if you aren't willing to be cautious enough to ensure that the higher ups in your executive circle have, if not spotless, at least mostly clean records.
Last week, President Obama went on record admitting that he "screwed up" with the vetting of a series of cabinet appointments -- a first for a president in office.
The apology came after it was discovered that three of Obama's appointees are not on the up and up with their taxes.
One of his appointees, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, managed to make it through the confirmation process, but his others were not so lucky.
Last week, former Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama's nominee for secretary of health and human services, took his name out of the ring following harsh criticism stemming from some $120,000 he faced in back taxes.
Soon after, Nancy Killefer, who was poised to become the first ever "chief performance officer" in U.S. history also asked that she be removed from consideration, for tax-related woes she chose not to disclose, although the Associated Press reported that a $946 tax lien was placed on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.
Naturally, Congressional Republicans jumped all over this one, as did The New York Times editorial board. And the criticism continued strongly until Daschle withdrew himself from consideration.
And they absolutely should have.
If you're promising to change Washington politics as usual -- as Obama did numerous times on the campaign trail -- the last thing you want is to be associated with a series of vetting scandals involving some pretty prominent tax cheats.
These recent revelations of tax issues call into question the sincerity of Obama's campaign promise to clean up Washington politics.
Now, it's unlikely that Obama intentionally picked folks with poor tax records, but clearly there was some sort of negligence on his part.
You can't promise to fix "politics as usual" if you aren't willing to be cautious enough to ensure that the higher ups in your executive circle have, if not spotless, at least mostly clean records.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Registered Independent
posted 2/09/09 @ 12:05 PM MST
Well Sean Reed, you were certainly anxious to congratulate Obama about something or other, but you appear to have jumped the gun. Kudos aren't in order quite yet. (Continued…)
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