There is a rage that is finally building in this country. To the average person, the rules have changed and the deck has been stacked against them. Right now the media, the Congress and the President are using Wall Street as the whipping boy. There is a good deal of merit in taking this position. However, there should be an equal amount of rage building for the hypocrisy and the gall that has come spewing forth from our "leaders". Let's start with this;
The Administration and the Democrat controlled Congress are playing politics with the stimulus package that everyone tells us we desperately need to save us from the abyss. How do you ask? Well lets start with this statement right after election from the investment banker turned White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel,
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
I understand the politics here. First of all the Democrats won the 2008 elections by a lot. It is their right to pursue their agenda. However, screwing with the desperately needed stimulus package by attaching a big part of your legislative agenda? That's just pure political smash-mouth-football. David Brooks from the New York Time wrote a piece on Friday that I think hits the nail on the head.
In a fateful decision, Democratic leaders merged the temporary stimulus measure with their permanent domestic agenda — including big increases for Pell Grants, alternative energy subsidies and health and entitlement spending. The resulting package is part temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part targeted and part untargeted.
It’s easy to see why Democrats decided to do this. They could rush through permanent policies they believe in. Plus, they could pay for them with borrowed money. By putting a little of everything in the stimulus package, they avoid the pay-as-you-go rules that might otherwise apply to recurring costs.
But they’ve created a sprawling, undisciplined smorgasbord, which has spun off a series of unintended consequences. First, by trying to do everything all at once, the bill does nothing well. The money spent on long-term domestic programs means there may not be enough to jolt the economy now (about $290 billion in spending is pushed off into 2011 and later). The money spent on stimulus, meanwhile, means there’s not enough to truly reform domestic programs like health technology, schools and infrastructure. The measure mostly pumps more money into old arrangements.
The Democrats are doing this because they can and in times like these that is just not right. While I believe the Republicans are so lame and rudderless right now that they are adding to the impending cock-up (technical term), the Democrats have the ball. The only thing that I have seen out of this leadership that is transparent is this power-move to shove their agenda down the throats of the Republicans (who will look bad voting against a bill to "save the economy"). Additionally, like Brooks said, get it through on a program that relies on new borrowing and avoids pesky "pay as you go" issues. It's smash-mouth football, "We're coming right over the left guard and their ain't a damn thing you can do about it."
Now lets turn to our new cabinet and their "honest mistakes" to pay their taxes. First we have our newly confirmed Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner. If I were president and I really wanted Geithner, I might hold my nose and give him a pass on his screw up on paying his taxes from his IMF employment, especially the 2001 and 2002 taxes that he essentially was going to avoid due to statute of limitations. However, claiming your kid's sleep-away camp tuition as dependent child-care? You're out Tim. Collect your sh*t and be on your way. President Obama however, seems to want to hold his nose and cover his eyes.
Tom Daschle? What the hell can you possibly say about this to take the stink off? Looks like Mr. Daschle accepted a "free car and driver" from one of his employers and didn't declare it as income. Honest mistake? Perhaps. Personally, if I went from being a Senator, where my income and tax situation is pretty straight forward, to being a lawyer, motivational speaker (not a lobbyist mind you) and consultant, I might change over to a professional accountant....Especially because he was getting paid $ millions. Mr. Daschle says he asked his accountant in June of 2008 to look into whether or not he should have paid taxes on the car and driver.....and the accountant came back to him IN DECEMBER to tell him he needed to pay taxes!! Come on! It took a professional CPA six months to tell Daschle that a free car and driver is a form of compensation? Like Mike says to Tom Hagen in Godfather I, "You're out Tom!"
The NY Times gave a good account of Mr. Daschle's activities and compensation since he left the Senate in 2005;
As a politician, Mr. Daschle often struck a populist note, but his financial disclosure report shows that in the last two years, he received $2.1 million from a law firm, Alston & Bird; $2 million in consulting fees from a private equity firm run by a major Democratic fundraiser, Leo Hindery Jr. (which provided him with the car and driver); and at least $220,000 for speeches to health care, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. He also received nearly $100,000 from health-related companies affected by federal regulation.
Mr. Obama has instituted rules requiring former lobbyists in his administration to pledge not to deal with former clients, though he has made exceptions for two nominees, one at the Pentagon and one at the health agency. As a strategic adviser to companies, Mr. Daschle did not have to register as a lobbyist, and is not technically covered by those rules.
“He’s never lobbied, therefore he’s not in violation of the pledge,” Mr. Gibbs said. “The president is comfortable with Senator Daschle’s variety of experiences and backgrounds. It’s why he believes he’s best suited to the efforts to reform our health care system.”
Never lobbied eh? How do you know Mr. Gibbs? He took down over $300,000 from health care and pharmaceutical companies. What did they pay him for? What did he do for the private equity firm that gave him the car and paid him $2.1 million? Maybe he told them riveting stories about "The Great Farm Bill Debate of 1993?" Maybe not.
In Mr. Daschle we get two White House hypocrisies for the price of one. Not only do they stand behind liars and cheats, they also bring folks into their administration who profited handsomely from the public/private revolving door. Long story short, people in glass White House's shouldn't throw stones.
