I was ready to come to work today and sit down and write a blazing denunciation of Tom Daschle and argue that President Obama had to toss him on the bonfire because of the tax problem that emerged over the weekend.
As my regular readers will know, I didn't really buy Timothy Geithner's argument that he made an honest mistake. I suspect it was closer to a dishonest mistake, and I think the guy is damn lucky that the economic crisis made the confirmation of a treasury secretary an imperative.
Toward Daschle, I feel more charitably. I think he was one of Obama's best cabinet choices. His designation signaled that Obama had learned perhaps the central political lesson of the failure of Clinton-care back in 1993-94: handling the legislative process well is of vital importance.
Naming a former senator to be in charge of the negotiations with his ex-colleagues was, and is, a brilliant play. Our healthcare crisis is one of our biggest problems, so this was a serious move.
But the tax problems looked pretty bad. Around $128,000 in back taxes is a lot of money – three years' salary for the average Joe. And over a car and a driver? It's certainly the case that while there's never been any evidence that Daschle is personally corrupt, he has supped at the table of Washington insiderism comfortably. His wife is a big-time lobbyist, most notably for the aviation industry, which has loads of business before Congress.
And since his defeat 2005, he's taken on some clients himself, such as Indian casinos. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but after the Abramoff business…I really think I might say to them y'know what, I'm sorry, but this isn't the best time for me to rep you. It's the age-old question: how much do these people need to make?
So I was ready to argue that Obama should chuck Daschle and make an example of him, thereby flamboyantly demonstrating that all this rhetoric about changing the way Washington works applied even to a crucial appointment (of someone who was one of his most important early backers, no less). And maybe Obama should still do that, for the sake of the symbolism.
But today's accounts in the Times and Post suggest that there isn't yet enough information (at least in the public realm) to draw a firm conclusion. At issue is the fact that a wealthy business gave Daschle the use of his car and driver when the businessman wasn't in Washington. By the Times' account, Daschle seems to have thought that the driver was being lent him by the businessman, who was presumably paying him a salary and taking care of his taxes.
By the Post's account, though, Daschle is said to have wondered last year whether he had any tax liability for the driver and asked his accountant to look into it:
One longtime friend [of Daschle's] blamed Hindery's company, InterMedia Advisors, for the tax oversight. Daschle did report the $1 million annual consulting fee he received from the private equity firm. He asked his accountant last summer to look into whether the Internal Revenue Service considers the free car and driver to be compensation, Washington lawyer Frederick Graefe said.
"If there was no 1099 [form] from his employer for the car and driver, how was he to know it was taxable?" Graefe said. "His integrity is beyond reproach."
What we don't yet know here is what exactly Daschle's accountant said. And why did Daschle start wondering this only in 2008 and not before?
Daschle will meet behind closed doors this evening with the Senate committee in charge of his confirmation. It sounds like he'll be confirmed if things remain this murky. And if he's confirmed, I suppose this will all be forgotten in a few months' time. But even if he does make it, this is two strikes against the Obama cabinet. We can avoid jumping to conclusions about Daschle while still arguing in general that Obama needs to hold his people to higher standards.
