I'm seeing a bit of snarky commentary around the Interweb that since three of President Obama's nominees to high positions have turned out to have problems with getting their taxes paid, maybe it's a "party" thing. As in, Democrats don't pay their taxes and Republicans do.
Sure.
Well, it doesn't take much Googling to find a bunch of Republicans who have had their problems with tax evasion. One such name is the Idiot Who Won't Go Away, Samuel Wurzelbacher, otherwise known as "Joe the Plumber". When John McCain, whose campaign basically consisted of saying false things and elevating know-nothings from obscurity to prominence (see "Palin, Sarah"), thrust Wurzelbacher into the limelight, our plumber friend was having a bit of tax trouble in Ohio.
Of course, clearly the "We always pay our taxes, unlike those tax cheatin' Democrats" Party, when learning of Joey Drano's tax problems, promptly shunted off to Tax Evader Purgatory, never to be heard from again, right? Errrr...nope. But that's OK, because Joe's keen insight into the stimulus package clearly outweighs his little tax kerfuffle, right?
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5 comments:
You didn't have anyone in particular in mind did you??
cough cough
In all seriousness, you're right-both sides are populated with all manner of scallywags. If I was less cynical about pols in general, the fact that the guy who promised to be different and change the way things were done, hold himself and his administration to the highest standards of transparency and ethical behavior has nominated 3 tax cheats and an AG whose actions did about as much to politicize DOJ as Bush did would anger me. I am completely unsurprised by these actions, as I expected business as usual, and that's what we're getting.
So, yeah the shot at generic "Democrats" was unwarranted, but a little amusing to this partisan hack.
It is true that democrats - that is democratic politicians are not paying their taxes, not the democrats that voted them in, and I say they should be fired. If you can't be honest as a democrat -you have no business being a politician. These people are no better than republicans, and Tom Datschel good riddens...he took money from drug companies, he is dispicable. Fire his ass out of here, and get someone with some moral backbone, that has no lobbyist experience at all? Obama are you listening?
Folks, I gotta be honest here: unless you're sitting on years and years worth of obvious tax fraud, I'm not that outraged by people who screw up on their taxes. Especially if they pay up as soon as they learn of the error. Just isn't that big a deal to me, Democrat OR Republican.
I do call BS on the whole "You said you'd change the way business was done!" objection. This is always interpreted as "Your people will be, without exception, the current day versions of Sir Galahad the Pure!", and it's always complete nonsense. As skeletons in the closet go, these are pretty minor skeletons. If it wouldn't piss you off if a Republican does it, it shouldn't piss you off if a Democrat does it.
(And frankly, the notion that Holder is going to "politicize" the Justice Department as much as Bush's people did boggles my mind. Bush's Justice Department was a train wreck of ineptitude of unprecedented proportions. Come on, now.)
And besides: maybe we could consider this to be "changing the way business is done" in that maybe Obama is trying to get us beyond this bizarre era we're in when a single non-scandal can derail an otherwise fine political career, and where by extension all political scandals are seen as equivalent. I'll take a guy who screwed up his taxes over a guy who thinks torture is A-OK, any day of the week.
This isn't a partisan issue (although some will of course make it out to be) it's a matter of if the people in charge can't figure out how to pay their taxes then their either crooks or prime examples that the system is too complex. Many of the people screwing up have accountants to handle all their tax matters and THEY can't get it right. It's a systemic issue.
Damn, I used "their" instead of "they're" - "...then they're either crooks...". My bad.
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