That's a Lot of Car Service

The recent news of former US Senator Tom Daschle's failure to declare much less pay taxes on the limo or car service he received for free from a friend (and Democratic fund raiser) brings up many many issues.  While I will speculate that he will be confirmed by the US Senate, I have, even before this tax issue arose, wondered about this appointment.  Tom Daschle is a man who has evolved from Washington, DC.  His wife (Linda Hall) is a lobbyist for aircraft manufacturers and other businesses, that while she claims she is not doing health care lobbying, hello!, aircraft manufacturers and associated businesses all provide health care benefits to their employees.  Working the "inside" the Beltway has become the family business for the Daschles.  And, after Tom Daschle is gone from being the Secretary of Health and Human Services you can bet he will be back at the lobbying angle.  As the former Democratic leader of the US Senate, Tom Daschle stood to make a lot of money from his connections after he lost the election for his seat in South Dakota.  Why go back to South Dakota for God's sake when you can ride around Washington, DC in a free limo?

So, really, here are my concerns: we're putting in someone for this job who is a creature of a bubble.  Understanding what is going on in not only health care, insurance, welfare, drug and alcohol addictions, and all the other pedestrian mandates in Health and Human Services takes, in my opinion, someone who has walked the walk.  Being a creature of DC is not that person.

Much less the fact his life is so far outside of the every day lives of the people he will impact the most.  I mean, to owe $128,oo0 on free limo services means he used an awful lot of limo service.  Just assume that the $128,000 is taxed at 25%, that means he used, what, over $500,000 in limo services during a less than three year time period!  That's amazing!  Hey, Tom, the rest of us take Metro!  That's a lot of self-importance.

Last, I am still concerned that so many of President Obama's appointments are from the same backgrounds.  By that I mean, federal legislators or people who have spent almost all of their careers in government service.  I don't know what is so unappealing about the Senate, but there sure seems to be a stampede to get out of there (sounds like a rather nice job to me, frankly).  While President Obama may not be afraid of having a lot of smart people around him (that's good), the one problem is that when all those smart people have had essentially the same lives, isolated in Washington, DC, it his team of rivals could end up being an echo chamber.  And that is not good.

Time to ditch Daschle and find someone who has actually had to live a normal life.