Has the Game Changed In Washington Yet?

Point Number One Taxes are Too Complicated:

The past few days of news about Obama Administration appointees and their tax issues got me thinking about the complexity of the tax system.  My wife and I pay someone every year to do our taxes.  I did  a quick poll around the office and didn’t find a single person who doesn’t invest every year in either software or the services of a tax preparer to do their taxes.  Put as simply as I can think: I’m happy to pay my fair share of taxes; I’m not happy that the system is so complex I have to spend money to pay taxes.  That’s bullshit.

Point Number Two – Either These People Aren’t That Smart or They’re the Victim of Their Own Greed:

I’m disappointed with Timothy Geithner because he’s not a game changer when it comes to solving our economic problems.  Tax problem or not, didn’t like the pick.  Tom Daschle on the other hand – that just hurts.

Not emotionally, per se.  It hurts the Party, it hurts any effort the president will undertake to fix an immoral health care system and it hurts our attempts to turn back the clock on pay to play in Washington.

Having worked in D.C. during the heydays of the Clinton Administration, I can attest to everything they say about Daschle being a hardworking, earnest, serious-minded public servant.  He was also above reproach on personal ethics.  He was genuinely liked on both sides of the aisle in the U.S. Senate.  Daschle has apparently cashed in during the intervening years.  Well, as far as I can see from what I’ve read and heard, he’s remained true to the basic policy positions he held as a U.S. Senator.

But when someone gives you a limo and driver – at your beck and call – and you use it fairly often, that’s like income.  Apparently Daschle has known since last summer that he had this problem.  He just now paid?  More bullshit.

When Cabinet appointments can be taken down for having an undocumented Guatemalan nanny, do you think Daschle is saavy enough to know last Fall, say, that he better take care of that issue?  He’s tried to pawn it off on his accountant, more bullshit.  Not paying your taxes is a political career showstopper.  It’s that important he should have been on top of it.  He’s either not bright, arrogant or greedy.

So what we’ve lost is a man who could have greatly helped move the current Administration’s efforts to fix the healthcare system.  Daschle didn’t just hurt himself he hurt us all.

Here’s an email I got from a very liberal Democratic friend of mine who has been involved with Democratic campaigns and causes since the early 1970s:

This is absurd, f…..ing democrats, excuse my latin…………….I pay my taxes, and I contribute significant amounts of money to causes that are important, because I think it is our responsibility to do so.   I am obviously out to lunch……………
Democrats really dont give a shit….they dont do either…….we know they didnt give money, that has been an embarrassment, now we learn they are so stupid as to not pay any attention to the tax liability…………………………………….really, really stupid…………………………………………….

Point Third – Expectations Are High

Many of us who got on the O Train honestly believe what Barack Obama says when he claims that his Administration will govern more “from the bottom up,” we’ll end the pay to play culture in Washington, blah, blah, blah.  So far we’ve got the same economic team that brought us the deregulation which lead to this current financial mess, there are more ties to Goldman Sachs in the Administration than to community organizing, the White House press office website still sucks, and next week the Secretary of the Treasury is going to announce Wall Street Bailout II.

I’m not feeling the game change in Washington.