Another Nominee With Tax Problems - Daschle This Time

Political Punch:

ABC News has obtained the Senate Finance Committee Report on Tom Daschle's nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which indicates that Daschle's tax problems were even more substantial than earlier reported.

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Mr. Daschle also didn't report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.

Oops. Hey I'm sure it was just an unintentional mistake that only coincidentally was exposed just after he was nominated to the Obama administration. It seems to happen all the time.

But wait there's more!

The Finance Committee staff still is reviewing whether travel and entertainment services provided Tom and Linda Daschle by EduCap, Inc., Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, Academy Achievement, and Loan to Learn should be reported as income. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Daschle made use of the jet belonging to EduCap, a non-profit student loan organization.

Wait, what? What's a non-profit doing with a jet? Kathryn Jean Lopez pulls an old article from the Washington Post which should shine some more light on the situation.

Two decades ago, a young accountant pioneered the now-$17 billion-a-year private student loan industry through a tiny nonprofit company with a noble goal: helping students pay for college.

The nonprofit company also has become a financial boon for the accountant, Catherine B. Reynolds, and her family. The McLean-based company bought a Gulfstream jet worth about $30 million that she sometimes uses to fly friends and relatives around the world. It has given more than $9 million to a separate nonprofit company run by her husband and paid her $1 million in annual compensation. And the nonprofit donates millions to her favorite charities, including $400,000 to her daughter's private school.

I'm betting her daughter never got anything south of a B. And Daschle was in up to his eyeballs with EduCap? Lovely. Well if you're a Republican anyway. Daschle and his lobbyist ways (I thought there were no lobbyists in Obama administration?) is exactly the kind of front man the GOP needs in place to oppose and highlight the worst aspects of government run health care.

As for the taxes, we simply need an addendum to the "Rangel Rule":

Rep. Carter introduced a bill Wednesday to eliminate all IRS penalties and interest for paying taxes past due.

The legislation calls for the creation of what he calls the, "Rangel Rule," -- drawing attention to the recent legal issues of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., enabling citizens who fail to pay taxes on time to do so later with no additional fees.

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As of September 2008 the Harlem Democrat reportedly paid back more than $10,000 in taxes but that did not include any IRS penalties.

Let's call it the Daschle rule - no need to report on the side consulting income until you're nominated to an Obama cabinet post.

But other than this, and Geithner, ... and Richardson, ... and Bill Clinton's foreign donors, ... and Eric Holder's terrorist pardons, ...and the Rahm-Blagojevich talks, ... It's been a smooth transition.