President Barack Obama
“Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game,” is what Casey Stengel reportedly said while watching his team, the New York Mets. The same could be said of the Democrats when it comes to paying taxes. The Democrats are the ones who rail against tax cuts for the rich. They don’t believe in lower tax rates to stimulate the economy, but if these wealthy Democrats find taxes problematic, they just don’t pay them.
We now hear of another nominee, Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader, has a $140,000 tax problem. $140,000! Most Americans would like to make that in income, let alone owe that in taxes. This follows on the heels of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner paying back taxes of $34,000 and Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes the tax laws, paying $10,800 in back taxes. We’d probably have a balanced budget if all these rich Democrats only paid the taxes they owe rather than fighting against tax cuts for everyone.
Here’s Daschle’s excuse for his tax problem:
“Mr. Daschle told committee staff that he had grown used to having a car and driver as Senate majority leader and didn’t think to report the perquisite on his taxes, according to staff members.”
Two things come glaringly into view here. First is the overall arrogance that these “public servants” feel they deserve privilege. They have no concept that in the real world not everyone has a car and driver provided by their employer. In this case the employer is all the Joe Sixpacks out there. The second thing is that these problems were discovered and fixed, in the cases of Daschle and Geithner, only after they were nominated for positions in Obama’s cabinet. So, what if they weren’t nominated? Do you think that this tax revenue that is legally owed to the government (you and me) would still be in their pockets?
We have the chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws failing to pay his taxes. We have the Treasury Secretary who oversees the Internal Revenue Service failing to pay his taxes. We have the former Senate Majority Leader who ran the senate that passes all laws failing to pay his taxes. Do you think it’s too hard to figure out how to comply with our tax code?
It’s time to scrap the tax code and go to a simple flat tax that you can file your return on a post card. Let’s put the $200 billion that Americans spend each year on tax compliance back into the economy. Let’s make sure that all these rich Democrats pay the taxes they owe. Do these two things and we probably won’t need a stimulus package.
