Too Good for Their Own Taxes
Nov 27th, 2009 by David Anderson
By Justin Williams
With the Bush tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2010 and both health care reform bills calling for increased tax revenue, the Obama Administration and Congress are about to saddle the American people one of the largest tax increases in history. The standard liberal litany for such a raid on taxpayers’ pockets is that working Americans have a “moral obligation” to “feed the poor” — or in the case of health care, pay their medical bills.
This is ironic as, once again, yet another appointed member of the Obama Administration has come up short on paying their own taxes in a timely and orderly fashion.
Lael Brainard, former Senior Fellow at the Brooking Institute, has been nominated to the position of undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. But she like Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, and Nancy Killfer before her, has proven to be what the IRS calls “tax cheats.” Which, of course, does not augur well for the “poor,” looking to have their bills paid with tax dollars.
A recent report from the Senate Finance Committee found that Ms. Brainard was late paying her real estate taxes in 2005, in 2006, and again in 2007. And the Associated Press reports that when asked about it, the delinquent Ms. Brainard went into a cover up mode. In fact according to AP, “the committee staff had to submit 10 sets of questions to Brainard before getting complete information about the discrepancies.”
Americans for Limited Government this past Thursday called upon the Senate Finance Committee to reject any Obama appointees with clear record as tax violators. And it asks that holds be put on such nominees, especially the latest, Lael Brainard.
ALG President Bill Wilson noted that “Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s nomination was nearly derailed because of his tax dodges. Trade Representative Ron Kirk failed to pay $10,000 in taxes and only filed an amended return after the Finance Committee caught him cheating. And yet, Obama continues trying to put the foxes in charge of the hen house.”
The famous colonial founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, put it best when he said, “No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.” The Obama administration and its appointees have shown the American people that they are not fit to demand higher taxes on others, when they, themselves are not even willing to pay their own taxes in a timely fashion.
Justin Williams is the Senior Commentary Editor for ALG News. Distributed open source. I plan to take it easy this week so I have mixed some quality open source and guest opinions in the mix. I hope you enjoyed it, but not quite as much.
Socialist-Democrats are common thieves; and sooner or later, they will suffer the fate of the common thief. See E. Germany, Romania, et. al.
Taxes should promote savings, growth and investment. If you promote those things you get revenue, lots of revenue.
Anything else is counterproductive.
Mike Protack
Oh, it is just toooo hilarious how all of you conservatives simply toss on horse-blinders when it comes to the corruption and cronyism that ran rampant in your homeboy Bush’s administration. Oh that’s right, I always forget; after you had used him up, you all tossed Bush under the bus as soon as it was convenient… ’cause that’s just what Jesus would have done.
It is outrageous to label someone with the heinous “tax cheat” label for simply filing real estate taxes a bit late and then paying the penalites that are clearly delineated on the form (“if you are 30 days late, the penalty is X; if 60 days late, the penalty is Y”) because the government expects that some people will pay late. Dr. Brainard paid all her taxes with some late fees for very small amounts (average of $200) in question. And it is also amazing that the press fell for that old trick of the opposition, namely mailing off a dozen requests for the same information phrased in slightly different language and then declaring that they “had to ask nummerous times” for the information. The analysis of her last ten years of tax records showed that she was very conservative and should have paid LESS to the government had she taken the basic deductions she was entitled to. If she cared to re-file her taxes with all the new information the Senate spent tens of thousands of dollars “uncovering”, the government would OWE HER tens of thousands of dollars. You have been suckered. Don’t take at face value anything you read about politics. Because this tempest in a teapot was all politics, not accounting.