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February 04, 2009 12:00 AM UTC

Daschle Withdraws Name from HHS Consideration

  • 35 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

What’s the deal with Democrats and not paying taxes? As MSNBC reports, Tom Daschle has pulled the plug on his own nomination for Health and Human Services:

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle on Tuesday withdrew his nomination to oversee the Health and Human Services Department, citing controversies over his taxes and his ties to the health care industry – and telling NBC News that a New York Times editorial also played a role.

His withdrawal came just a few hours after another Obama nominee, Nancy Killefer, said she was withdrawing her nomination. Both had controversies with taxes and cited distractions over that as reasons for withdrawing.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters the two realized “that you can’t set an example of responsibility but accept a different standard of who serves.”

Comments

35 thoughts on “Daschle Withdraws Name from HHS Consideration

    1. President Obama is on Fox telling Chris Wallace that he takes responsibility for the Daschle screwup.

      Daschle finally did the right thing, but only after sucking Obama and Senate Dems into praising his honesty and knowledge of health care.

      Daschle never should have taken the nomination in the first place. He embarrassed the president and himself.

      He is not indispensable. Because of his dishonest and divisive  performance as majority leader, he wouldn’t have been trusted by the Republicans who the president will want to support some aspects of health care reform.

      And even though Daschle was involved in health care reform legislation for years, he’s a light weight on the topic, as his latest ghost written book shows.

      I have to question the intellectual integrity and the judgment of anyone who called Daschle “honest” and “indispensable.” That’s a lot of Democrats.

      He got HHS because he endorsed Obama early and worked hard on the campaign, not because he’s a health care expert or a particularly effective lobbyist.

      But he does know how to make money.

      Now, he knows how to pay taxes.

    2. Because no Republican actually remembers Sarah Palin’s tax problem.

      Of course, as with most Republicans, by the time you get through their overwhelming corruption and monumental incompetence, their tax issues seem like small potatoes.

      Isn’t it nice that we finally live in a country where a single missed tax payment is a big deal again? In some sense, it represents a return to normalcy. We’re no longer worried about systematic violations of the Constitution, just an occasional personal lapse.

    1. However, Pres Obama owed Daschle for his early support and advise—run for president in 08 because he had almost no record to be examined nor enemies made.  He (Obama) could adopt any position he needed.  And, they must have thought they could push Daschle through regardless of the tax issue.

      I’m happy Daschle is gone.

    1. it should have been Dean from the beginning, both as a “reward” for the job he did as DNC Chair and b/c he’d just do a good job at HHS.  I’m definitely part of the camp that think Dems “owe” Dean something.

      But, I doubt he’d get the gig.  Despite his record as Gov of Vermont, he’s viewed as too hyper-partisan for Obama’s bipartisan penchant.  

      I hope I’m wrong and he’ll get picked…Im just not counting on it…

    2. in this position (or any cabinet position).  

      He is far too abrasive and if any headway is to be made on Health Care Reform, this person is going to have to be able to “work well with others”.

      I like Dean (supported him in ’04), but this is not the place for him.  

        1. he is damned smart.  I think that Obama has his tough guy in Emanuel….not sure that Dean is quite cut out to be the “bring the folks together” person that is going to be needed to tackle health care.

          1. Who needs to be massaged and persuaded? Republicans have spent the past two weeks begging us to notice that they’re not worth negotiating with. And they don’t have the votes to stop us.

            Who else do we need to worry about?

  1. With Daschle out and Kennedy ailing, this could have been an open door to her taking over health care like she wanted to in the Senate.  

    Instead she’s on a plane to Asia, right?  At least I thought I read it somewhere…

    1. to see Daschle out.  She wouldn’t have been interested in HHS anyway.  If she had stayed in the Senate she would have been the go to person on healthcare, Kennedy notwithstanding.

      1. I am hoping this provides Obama a second chance to appoint someone the health insurers absolutely fucking loathe, so that he or she can stick it to them the way they’ve been stickin’ it to us the past few years.

        Wouldn’t that be nice ?

  2. When I heard it on MSNBC this morning, it made my day. There wouldn’t have been an ounce of real health care reform under Daschle.

    And Haners has a point–if the rest of us are expected to obey the rule of law, the same laws that half of these assholes passed but don’t abide by, why should we?

  3. ..you all are so dramatic!  That’s my job.

    A few prominent people are found to have not paid some taxes and then….suddenly….what?  Everyone asks, “If they don’t have to pay taxes, why should we?”  Well, guess what, they do AND you do!  The both of youz.  So, get back to it.

  4. Tim Geithner is going next?  This constant drumbeat of tax deadbeat nominations isn’t going to help the president any.  It’s sending a message of Democrats thinking that taxes are only for the little people, not for the special elite, such as themselves.  

    President Obama is throwing away his popularity with this.  It’s hard to say you are for change when you have a lot of old faces at your side, carrying extra baggage from when we last saw them.

  5. Bush: (After numerous incrdibly disastrous decisions)…”I can’t think of any mistakes I’ve made”

    Obama: (After Daschle withdraws)…..”I screwed up.”

    1. can you screw up and get a pat on the back from Sir Robin.

      Just kidding, SR.  Amazing how refreshing it is to hear someone admit a screw up.  And to think, Obama’s mistake didn’t even leave anyone dead!

  6. With Daschle gone I don’t have an opinion on who would be the best replacement. Conyers bill is the way to go, been sitting in Congress for years, should have been done years ago before Bush ran the country into the poorhouse with trillion dollar a year budget deficits. Good time to have done it from a fiscal perspective would have been at the end of Clinton’s term or beginning of the next when we had budget surpluses. Unfortunately we got a “high functioning moron” for his successor and nothing was done (he was too preoccupied spending $ 700 billion invading and occupying a country that never attacked us and posed no threat to our national security).

    In 1947 Harry Truman called for a single payer universal health care system (was in the Dems platform in 1948 also). It’s incredible to me we’ve done almost nothing, when almost every other industrialized country in the world has.  

    1. Why is it that totalitarians support single-payer health insurance, which would dumb down access to health care for all Americans?

      The greed for power over other people’s lives is something to behold.

        1. he can’t.  He never does.  That RushBo or Manatee said it is enough.  It must be true, he printed it off Red State.  

          Oh and if you challenge him enough–he’ll just declare the debate over and himself the winner.  

          1. I remember listening to Dick Cheney giving his VP acceptance speech at the 2004 Republican convention and he stated “the Bush administration has worked to lower the cost of health care for all Americans”. Since I’m self employed and pay for my own health insurance, I pulled out my receipts and figured my health care premiums had gone up over 20% every year since 2000.

            It’s amazing what some people will believe just because “somebody” said it.  

  7. but since serious people won’t discuss it, I guess I’ll have to.

    What was Daschle accused of? He worked for someone, and one of the perks was getting driven around. Now many of us don’t have nice perks at our jobs, but we have little perks.

    Say your company gives you a laptop so you can work from home. And once in a while you post dumbass messages on blogs with it. Now according to the IRS, you should compute the amount of time you spend on it doing personal things, say 20%. If the computer is worth $1000, you should consider that $200 in income and report it on your tax forms.

    An employer-provided bus pass is the same type of thing. Use it to get to work? Fine. Use it to go to a concert? Taxable benefit.

    Let your friend stay in the back room for a month for free? Hope he reports it. Ask him to help you move and give him beer? Hope you saved the receipt. He gave you his old TV in gratitude? Better go appraise it.

    Nobody follows these laws because they’re far too cumbersome if taken seriously. Once you get up to a certain level of wealth, the issues start to look bigger, but they remain relatively minor.

    Daschle found this issue himself and publicized it. Of course he should have paid the taxes once he knew about it, and that’s exactly what he did. Wish he were slightly more pristine, sure, but I don’t understand the hissyfit everyone is throwing.

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