More Monday Musings

Given the recent spate of high-level cabinet appointees that seem to have difficulty in properly paying their "fair share" of the national tax burden, I think this would be a prime opportunity to institute some more ethics reform in Washington.

My first proposal is that every member of the House and Senate, the President, and his entire cabinet, undergo yearly audits by the IRS. I don't think it is too much to ask that those responsible for writing, implementing, and enforcing tax law on the rest of us be held to the highest standard, and they should be able to prove that they are, in fact, leading by example in this area. I think, also, that in any year that they fail to meet at least 90% compliance, the rest of the taxpayers be given a full income tax refund for that year.

I think that, if we are to take Timothy Geithner at his word, that his failure to pay taxes on time was an honest mistake, that a serious conversation should be undertaken with him regarding reforming and simplifying the U.S. tax code. After all, if the head of the IRS cannot properly pay his taxes, why are all the rest of us lesser mortals expected to?

I think it is high time we stop honoring elected officials for "service to their country," as if they are making some huge sacrifice. Members of the military serve their country. National Guardsmen serve their country. Senators and Congressmen who receive compensation for their time in office, who often then go on to lucrative lobbying jobs afterwards, who draw cushy retirement packages even when they are ejected in shame, who use their positions to gain more power for themselves, are not serving anybody but themselves. Not since the early days of this country, when serving in the federal government actually was a hardship that was not worth the little money they were paid and the vast distances they had to travel has this been a sacrifice. Not since the days of the Continental Congress have these individuals had to risk anything for this service. People like Tom Daschle are not owed anything for their "service" to this country. If anything, we, the taxpayers, seem to be the ones sacrificing every time we elect these people to office.

Much was made of how hateful Republicans were not so long ago regarding false allegations that we liked to call Democrats unpatriotic. Well, hypocrisy seems to be the coin of the realm for liberals. One of the most recent emerging Hollywood actors-turned political expert, Tom Hanks, has leveled the charge of being "Un-American" at the entire Mormon church (the actual name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Mr. Hanks is a fine actor, and I have enjoyed most of his movies. As of late, he has been behind the HBO series "Big Love" (Hanks is the executive producer), which has as its subject matter a polygamist family that is part of a sect that splintered off of the Mormon church. Recently, in promoting the series, Mr. Hanks made the allegation that members of the Mormon church gave the church money to pass Proposition 8 in California - the widely popular proposition that banned gay marriage, and passed with a majority of the vote. Note that Mormons do not comprise a majority of the population at large, or the voting populace, in the state of California - nevertheless, the church has received the majority of the vitriolic slander by people such as Mr. Hanks. Mr. Hanks is also incorrect in his statement - members of the church did not give money to the church to pass this, rather they were encouraged by the church leadership to do what they could to help it pass. Mr. Hanks then went on to say that, "There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them." He later, through his publicist, issued an apology. How typical of liberal thought - speaking out and voting your conscience is apparently only American when it advances the agenda of the liberal pseudo-intellectual class of this country. All the rest of us are Un-American. I once thought that, in an occupation that has lately seemed to have lost all sense of decency, Mr. Hanks stood above the Sean Penns and Tim Robbins and had some class. Clearly I was premature in that judgment.

It just keeps getting better

So it now becomes clear why Democrats can be so cavalier about raising taxes - as pointed out by a Republican Congressman this last week, it doesn't seem like any of them pay them in the first place. I'm not just talking about the poor that seem to overwhelmingly vote Democrat. I'm talking about the limousine liberals - the ones making upwards of 6 figures. You know, the "rich." Maybe Obama should reconsider his great plans to finance his massive spending proposals by increasing taxes on the "rich." If the actions of people like Timothy Geithner and Tom Daschle are any indication, he might not be bringing in that much more revenue - at least not unless they start nominating every rich person for a cabinet position, in which case they all seem to come to the realization that they made a few "innocent mistakes" on their taxes.

Daschle is the latest, and he makes Geithner look like a choir boy. Multiply the amount that Geithner shorted the IRS by 3, and you have the amount of money that Daschle "forgot" to pay in a 3-year period. Over $100K. How many people out there make over $100K in a year? And of course, Daschle only thinks to pay the money once he has already accepted the nomination to Secretary of HHS. Geithner was forgiven his "innocent mistake" of ~$40K because, supposedly, this genius of financial wisdom was for some reason essential to righting the economy, and nobody else could do the job - scary that, with as brilliant as he was supposed to be, he couldn't do his own taxes. So how do you make a similar argument for Daschle? His only experience is being a Senator and a lobbyist. I find it hard to believe that makes him indispensable for the position at HHS - especially since he showed no particular skills in this area while serving in the Senate.

Which brings me to my next question. Obama was going to run a more ethical ship than Bush. One of his first actions was to proclaim some of the strongest prohibitions against lobbyists in his administration that we have ever seen. But Daschle has been a lobbyist ever since he left the Senate. He has been lobbying for groups that stand to benefit hugely were he to head HHS. His wife is a long-time lobbyist.

I'm sorry - where is all this evidence regarding how brilliant our new president is? If his selections for his cabinet considered, the evidence is pretty thin - Daschle, Richardson, Holder, Geithner.

Finally, it is nice to see Republicans regaining their feet. They have absolutely no power right now in the House, and their ability to filibuster in the Senate is hanging on by the thinnest of threads. And yet they are winning the PR war over the "stimulus" bill. I shouldn't get too excited, because House Democrats made it a pretty easy target. I'm not sure how payouts to Filipino veterans of WWII - in the Philippines - is going to stimulate our economy. Or how money to prevent STDs is going to stimulate anything - at least financially speaking. The master stroke was to come up with their own plan, and then evaluate it based on criteria espoused by one of Obama's own chief economic advisors - and having their plan cost less and stimulate more job production than the House bill that Obama supports. The result? Republicans continue to talk tough, and Democrats - especially Senate Democrats - are already on the defensive, talking about how, obviously, certain things will need to be cut. Whatever happened to the wonderful stimulus bill that Obama promised us, that would be free of any earmarks? Is this the kind of Hope and Change we were promised?