Obama administration in crisis: Daschle & Killefer out due to tax issues

[cyberianpan]

Tom Daschle was the candidate for cabinet secreary of health & also the White House health czar (the job Hillary bungled)- he's withdrawn for tax reasons

Nancy Killefer was the much vaunted candidate for "chief performance officer" who was going to scrub the budget of waste- she's withdrawn for tax reasons

Obama is tarnished by this and has lost a lot of political capital, he started vetting them months ago...

cYp

<Mod> This thread has been merged with "The Obama transition becomes a fiasco as Daschle is dropped". </Mod>

[He3]

Disqualifying people from public office because they dodged/delayed paying all their tax? Never gonna catch on here...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...-withdraws/?hp

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...th-nominee/?hp

[Clanrickard]

Tom Daschle was the candidate for cabinet secreary of health & also the White House health czar (the job Hillary bungled)- he's withdrawn for tax reasons

Nancy Killefer was the much vaunted candidate for "chief performance officer" who was going to scrub the budget of waste- she's withdrawn for tax reasons

Obama is tarnished by this and has lost a lot of political capital, he started vetting them months ago...

cYp

It's going to get ugly over there.

[Kf]

Could you imagine if wannabe candidates were throughly vetted in Ireland. The dail chamber would look like a pub on good friday.

[hiding behind a poster]

Tom Daschle was the candidate for cabinet secreary of health & also the White House health czar (the job Hillary bungled)- he's withdrawn for tax reasons

Nancy Killefer was the much vaunted candidate for "chief performance officer" who was going to scrub the budget of waste- she's withdrawn for tax reasons

Obama is tarnished by this and has lost a lot of political capital, he started vetting them months ago...

cYp

I think "crisis" is overegging the pudding just a tad. I can't remember when last an administration appointed all its first choices without at least one falling by the wayside en route.

[FutureTaoiseach]

It underlines the urgent need for proper oversight mechanisms for state-appointments in this country - possibly a role the Seanad could fulfill.

[cyberianpan]

I think "crisis" is overegging the pudding just a tad. I can't remember when last an administration appointed all its first choices without at least one falling by the wayside en route.

Richardson bit the dust a while back and this story has legs

Politico
Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the Obama administration, two Democrats said Monday.

Leo Hindery, whose InterMedia Partners employed the former Senate majority leader, had been mentioned as a possible secretary of commerce or U.S. trade representative.

"Tom was pushing for him," said one Democratic source.

Obama's aides rejected Daschle's suggestion that a top job go to Hindery, for whose private equity fund Daschle had served as a rainmaker and adviser.
...
But the news that Daschle did not pay taxes on the imputed income for the car and driver has put the spotlight on Hindery, a blustery, left-leaning mogul with an office in Chrysler Building, a table at the Four Seasons, and a passion for race cars, who has styled himself as organized labor’s Robert Rubin.
More
Gibbs said the administration, however, would take the blame for the nomination's failure. “We all take responsibility. [COLOR=Red]The president takes responsibility,” he said.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=Red]However, Gibbs refused to be drawn out on what specific errors of judgment Obama[/COLOR] or others made in allowing Daschle’s nomination to proceed.. “I’m not going to spend a lot of time up here looking through the rear view mirror or playing Monday morning quarterback on this,” he said.

Obama is tarnished by this, his change bubble is badly damaged.

cYp

[TommyO'Brien]

Richardson bit the dust a while back and this story has legs



Obama is tarnished by this, his change bubble is badly damaged.

cYp

How?

Did he claim infallibility?

Did he appoint someone who was in cabinet when it turned out they were a crook?

Did he fiddle his own taxes?

US presidents appoint thousands of people over the first 18 months to all sorts of jobs.

So what if three of the vast number of people chosen dropped out? That happens in every administration. 3 is by some administrations' standards small fry.

[Defeated Romanticist]

The transition from the Bush to the Obama administration has hit yet another rock today as his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human services was forced to withdraw his name from consideration after it emerged that he had failed his "patriotic duty" to pay his taxes. This latest embarrassment comes after revelations of goodies such as giving income tax rebates to millions of people who pay no income taxes and so seems to be simply welfare is his "New Deal" to revive the economy. When Sen. John Kyl, at a White House meeting with Obama, raised this with him,Obama tersely replied, “I won.” Such devisivness...

A Stimulous package which gives money to people so they can increase the US trade deficit seems like a good way to stimulate China's economy and Wal Mart's balance sheet but will likely do little for the US economy.

This comes in the aftermath of Obama Treasury secretary nominee Tim Geithner also was found to be behind in his taxes and the world from which Obama came from, Chicago Democratic politics, was brutally exposed by Former Governor Blagojevich's misdemeanors.

This may be a bodyblow to Obama's aim to expand government healthcare in the United States.

Daschle withdraws as health nominee - International Herald Tribune
Daschle withdraws as Obama nominee - White House- msnbc.com

[cyberianpan]

How?

US presidents appoint thousands of people over the first 18 months to all sorts of jobs.

So what if three of the vast number of people chosen dropped out? That happens in every administration. 3 is by some administrations' standards small fry.

Daschle's was a major appointment, both to the Cabinet & health Czar, and you'll also find if you study the history that Daschle was Obama's most prominent early backer:

On February 21, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Daschle, after ruling out a presidential bid of his own in December 2006, had thrown his support behind Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois for the 2008 presidential election, saying that Obama "personifies the future of Democratic leadership in our country."[28]
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Daschle served as a key advisor to Obama and one of the national co-chairs for Obama's campaign

How?

Did he claim infallibility?
[COLOR=Red]
Did he appoint someone who was in cabinet when it turned out they were a crook? [/COLOR]

Yes to the crook question, and he's known about the tax evasion for some time, that's what the Politico story (above) is referring to, also the way Daschle acted as a quasi-lobbyist does not help the whole picture.

Time Between his tax problems and the growing scrutiny of his lucrative ties to the health industry, the former Senate Majority Leader's nomination had become a repudiation of the very things that Obama had promised to change about Washington.

cYp