"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," sayeth Rahm.
Opportunistic and cynical, yes. But also savvy political counsel that transformational presidents have always followed.
FDR exploited the Depression to launch his New Deal, bring an end to a Republican hegemony of seven decades and make Democrats the majority party, until Richard Nixon picked the lock.
While the debate is endless over whether the New Deal ended the Depression or caused it to endure until World War II spending pulled us out of the ditch, few deny that FDR left a monumental legacy.
We see it in the great dams of the West and TVA in the South, in the REA that first brought electricity to America's farms, in deposit insurance, unemployment benefits and Social Security.
Lyndon Johnson seized on the trauma of JFK's assassination and racial incidents such as Selma Bridge to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Ronald Reagan seized on the humiliation of the Iranian hostage crisis, Moscow's invasion of Afghanistan and the worst recession since the 1930s to rebuild the military, create a 600-ship Navy, push the Soviet Empire out of Central America and Afghanistan, and cut taxes from 70 percent to 28 percent, creating 20 million jobs in a seven-year boom that inspired the awe, envy and emulation of much of the world.
Not for nothing are the '80s remembered as the Reagan Decade.
Obama himself has spoken of FDR and Reagan as the kind of "transformational" presidents he wishes to become.
Which brings us to that "stimulus package," the price of which is $819 billion and rising, 6 percent of gross domestic product, piled on a deficit already projected at $1.2 trillion. As it was being whistled through the House, not one Republican voted aye. A dozen Democrats could not stomach it, either.
Does President Obama really want this Nancy Pelosi New Deal to be his legacy? Because that is exactly what he is inviting. And before he uses force majeure to ram this bill through the Senate, he ought to consider what the honest objections are.
When Sen. John Kyl, at a White House meeting with Obama, said that giving income tax rebates to millions of folks who pay no income taxes seems to be simply welfare, Obama tersely replied, "I won."
Indisputably. But does it make sense to include in a plan to prepare America for the 21st century borrowing billions from Beijing to mail out in $500 checks to folks who don't pay income taxes, so they can run down to Wal-Mart and buy more goods made in China?
The New York Times reports Monday in a front-page story about California, "A State With a Wish List," "More than two-thirds of the states are facing budget shortfalls this year and next ... and could use the money to help balance budgets, blunt potential cuts in education and shrink Medicaid obligations."
Sure, they could. But is this remaking America? Or is it bailing out the same state and local politicians Barack himself castigated in his inaugural as those responsible for "our collective failure to make hard choices"?
Why would Barack wager his presidency on a gamble that, by handing over hundreds of billions in borrowed federal money, to spare governors and mayors the consequences of their own profligacy, he can remake the America economy and ignite a real recovery?
What are the fundamental objections to the Obama-Pelosi plan?
It is three parts social spending to one part stimulus. It takes too long to work. It represents a permanent not temporary expansion of government.
It is too much LBJ, who bet the ranch on spending and failed, and not enough JFK, who bet on tax reductions that succeeded.
Even Bill Clinton would not have ceded so much to the tax-and-spend wing of his party, which he relied on for votes, not advice.
Has Obama no more imaginative ideas for government's role in reshaping the economy for the 21st century than this? Was it all talk all along, to prepare the way for a return to the days of spend and spend?
Sad, because this is likely to be Obama's last shot at getting this economy on its feet and running by 2010. For Americans are not as patient as they were in the 1930s, when FDR could try one idea, then another, then another for five years, and continue to roll up massive electoral victories.
If Obama gets this one wrong, and all this pork and welfare fail to generate real growth, his party could face a wipeout in 2010, and his opportunity could be lost forever. Does he really want to bet the farm on the nag Nancy Pelosi just trotted out of the House?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Daschle Should Withdraw
When President Obama nominated former Senator Tom Daschle to be his secretary of health and human services, it seemed to be a good choice. Mr. Daschle, as the co-author of a book on health care reform, knew a lot about one of the president’s signature issues. As a former Senate majority leader, he also knew a lot about guiding controversial bills through Congress, where he remains liked and respected by former colleagues.
Unfortunately, new facts have come to light — involving his failure to pay substantial taxes that were owed and his sizable income from health-related companies while he worked in the private sector — that call into question his suitability for the job. We believe that Mr. Daschle ought to step aside and let the president choose a less-blemished successor.
Mr. Daschle’s tax shortfall is particularly troubling because it comes on the heels of another nominee’s failure to pay taxes due. We were not pleased when the president’s Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation.
Now we are confronted with an even larger lapse by Mr. Daschle, who failed to pay $128,000 in taxes, primarily for personal use of a car and driver provided to him by a private equity firm for which he consulted. Although the firm — headed by a major Democratic donor — had not issued a form 1099 for the value of the car service, Mr. Daschle said he became concerned last June that he might owe taxes on it and instructed his accountant to investigate. Neither was concerned enough to actually pay the taxes.
Only after the Obama transition team flagged unrelated tax issues that would require filing amended returns did Mr. Daschle and his accountant address the need to report the personal use value of the car service — more than $255,000 over three years — as income. Only after he had been chosen to be the health secretary did Mr. Daschle tell the transition team about the unpaid taxes. He paid some $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2 to settle several tax problems — and he acknowledges owing more.
In both the Geithner and Daschle cases, the failure to pay taxes is attributed to unintentional oversights. But Mr. Daschle is one oversight case too many. The American tax system depends heavily on voluntary compliance. It would send a terrible message to the public if we ignore the failure of yet another high-level nominee to comply with the tax laws.
Mr. Daschle’s financial ties to major players in the health care industry may prove to be even more troublesome as health reform efforts proceed. Like many former power players in Washington, Mr. Daschle cashed in on his political savvy and influence to earn $5 million in recent years, including more than $2 million from Alston & Bird, a law and lobbying firm; more than $2 million from the private equity firm, InterMedia Advisors, which provided the car and driver; and hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches to interest groups, including those representing health insurance plans, medical equipment distributors and pharmacy boards.
Although Mr. Daschle was not a registered lobbyist, he offered policy advice to the UnitedHealth Group, a huge insurance conglomerate. He was also a trustee of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, on whose behalf he voiced opposition to a federal loan for a freight rail line near the clinic’s headquarters in Rochester, Minn. The loan was subsequently denied by the Federal Railroad Administration.
Mr. Daschle is another in a long line of politicians who move cozily between government and industry. We don’t know that his industry ties would influence his judgments on health issues, but they could potentially throw a cloud over health care reform. Mr. Daschle could clear the atmosphere by withdrawing his name.
Unfortunately, new facts have come to light — involving his failure to pay substantial taxes that were owed and his sizable income from health-related companies while he worked in the private sector — that call into question his suitability for the job. We believe that Mr. Daschle ought to step aside and let the president choose a less-blemished successor.
Mr. Daschle’s tax shortfall is particularly troubling because it comes on the heels of another nominee’s failure to pay taxes due. We were not pleased when the president’s Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation.
Now we are confronted with an even larger lapse by Mr. Daschle, who failed to pay $128,000 in taxes, primarily for personal use of a car and driver provided to him by a private equity firm for which he consulted. Although the firm — headed by a major Democratic donor — had not issued a form 1099 for the value of the car service, Mr. Daschle said he became concerned last June that he might owe taxes on it and instructed his accountant to investigate. Neither was concerned enough to actually pay the taxes.
Only after the Obama transition team flagged unrelated tax issues that would require filing amended returns did Mr. Daschle and his accountant address the need to report the personal use value of the car service — more than $255,000 over three years — as income. Only after he had been chosen to be the health secretary did Mr. Daschle tell the transition team about the unpaid taxes. He paid some $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2 to settle several tax problems — and he acknowledges owing more.
In both the Geithner and Daschle cases, the failure to pay taxes is attributed to unintentional oversights. But Mr. Daschle is one oversight case too many. The American tax system depends heavily on voluntary compliance. It would send a terrible message to the public if we ignore the failure of yet another high-level nominee to comply with the tax laws.
Mr. Daschle’s financial ties to major players in the health care industry may prove to be even more troublesome as health reform efforts proceed. Like many former power players in Washington, Mr. Daschle cashed in on his political savvy and influence to earn $5 million in recent years, including more than $2 million from Alston & Bird, a law and lobbying firm; more than $2 million from the private equity firm, InterMedia Advisors, which provided the car and driver; and hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches to interest groups, including those representing health insurance plans, medical equipment distributors and pharmacy boards.
Although Mr. Daschle was not a registered lobbyist, he offered policy advice to the UnitedHealth Group, a huge insurance conglomerate. He was also a trustee of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, on whose behalf he voiced opposition to a federal loan for a freight rail line near the clinic’s headquarters in Rochester, Minn. The loan was subsequently denied by the Federal Railroad Administration.
Mr. Daschle is another in a long line of politicians who move cozily between government and industry. We don’t know that his industry ties would influence his judgments on health issues, but they could potentially throw a cloud over health care reform. Mr. Daschle could clear the atmosphere by withdrawing his name.
Iraqi democracy is Bush's true legacy
On Saturday, Iraq conducted what may stand as the freest, fairest and most genuinely representative democratic elections the Arab world has ever witnessed. Yet even as the votes are being counted, the man responsible for this remarkable political revolution — who believed that Saddam Hussein's hellish dictatorship could be turned into a model Arab democracy, and mobilized the might of the most powerful nation on earth to do something about it — has already become something of a forgotten man.
George W. Bush made many mistakes during his presidency. But with Saturday's peaceful, vigorously contested election in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, his overarching ambition of a robust democracy taking root in the heart of the Middle East seems to have become a reality. Notwithstanding the ongoing fawn-fest over Barack Obama, is it too much to ask that Mr. Obama's predecessor be given his due for accomplishing a task that, just a decade ago, during the dark days of Saddam's sadistic rule, would have seemed other-worldly?
This is not the first nominally free election that Iraq has witnessed: Representative democracy was inaugurated four years ago, amid photos of voters' ink-stained fingers pointed skyward for the cameras. But Iraq was then a terror-besieged charnel house in which whole regions were run by al-Qaeda spin-offs and sectarian militias. During that period, the violence was so bad that candidates could not even go out and meet voters, for fear of assassination. Moreover, the country's Sunni minority largely boycotted the 2005 election, giving rise to lop-sided Shiite majorities across the country.
This time, the Sunnis participated, which means the results will almost certainly yield a legislative mix whose composition at least approximates that of the population as a whole. What's more, many of the 14,000-plus candidates competing for the 440 seats up for grabs ran as something other than seat-holders for dogmatic sectarian or ethnic agendas — a welcome departure from the hard-line Shiite party lists that dominated the 2005 vote.
Many of the candidates were women, and some were overtly secular. What's more, the campaigning leading up to Saturday's vote was generally vibrant, with closely contested areas featuring a riot of Western-style campaign posters. Scattered violence, acts of intimidation, and even a handful of killings did take place in the lead-up to the vote, but Election Day itself was generally peaceful.
In light of this inspiring outcome, no one of good faith — not even those (like me) who believe that the invasion of Iraq was, on balance, a mistake — could possibly argue that Iraq was a better place when Saddam Hussein was still in power.
But, much as Saturday's successful elections are worth celebrating, it must also be conceded that the path to this milestone was soaked with the blood of tens of thousands — likely hundreds of thousands — of Iraqis, as well as more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.
Mr. Bush's grand dream of a democratized Middle East has not become reality. But at the very least, he liberated the Arab nation whose citizens suffered more than all the rest. Saturday's elections show that post-invasion Iraq, for all its violence, corruption and flaws, has become a recognizably democratic country. Whatever else is said of Mr. Bush, he must be given credit for this remarkable accomplishment.
George W. Bush made many mistakes during his presidency. But with Saturday's peaceful, vigorously contested election in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, his overarching ambition of a robust democracy taking root in the heart of the Middle East seems to have become a reality. Notwithstanding the ongoing fawn-fest over Barack Obama, is it too much to ask that Mr. Obama's predecessor be given his due for accomplishing a task that, just a decade ago, during the dark days of Saddam's sadistic rule, would have seemed other-worldly?
This is not the first nominally free election that Iraq has witnessed: Representative democracy was inaugurated four years ago, amid photos of voters' ink-stained fingers pointed skyward for the cameras. But Iraq was then a terror-besieged charnel house in which whole regions were run by al-Qaeda spin-offs and sectarian militias. During that period, the violence was so bad that candidates could not even go out and meet voters, for fear of assassination. Moreover, the country's Sunni minority largely boycotted the 2005 election, giving rise to lop-sided Shiite majorities across the country.
This time, the Sunnis participated, which means the results will almost certainly yield a legislative mix whose composition at least approximates that of the population as a whole. What's more, many of the 14,000-plus candidates competing for the 440 seats up for grabs ran as something other than seat-holders for dogmatic sectarian or ethnic agendas — a welcome departure from the hard-line Shiite party lists that dominated the 2005 vote.
Many of the candidates were women, and some were overtly secular. What's more, the campaigning leading up to Saturday's vote was generally vibrant, with closely contested areas featuring a riot of Western-style campaign posters. Scattered violence, acts of intimidation, and even a handful of killings did take place in the lead-up to the vote, but Election Day itself was generally peaceful.
In light of this inspiring outcome, no one of good faith — not even those (like me) who believe that the invasion of Iraq was, on balance, a mistake — could possibly argue that Iraq was a better place when Saddam Hussein was still in power.
But, much as Saturday's successful elections are worth celebrating, it must also be conceded that the path to this milestone was soaked with the blood of tens of thousands — likely hundreds of thousands — of Iraqis, as well as more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.
Mr. Bush's grand dream of a democratized Middle East has not become reality. But at the very least, he liberated the Arab nation whose citizens suffered more than all the rest. Saturday's elections show that post-invasion Iraq, for all its violence, corruption and flaws, has become a recognizably democratic country. Whatever else is said of Mr. Bush, he must be given credit for this remarkable accomplishment.
Democrats are hypocrites when it comes to paying taxes
They say taxes are a patriotic duty. So why did Geithner and Daschle have trouble paying them?
During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden insisted that paying your taxes is a patriotic duty. No, scratch that. He said that supporting a tax hike was the American thing to do. "It's time to be patriotic," he told America's putative tax slackers. When asked whether he might be questioning the patriotism of people who don't want higher taxes, Biden, as is his wont, took things to the next rhetorical level. Forget patriotism, insisted Joe, paying higher taxes is a religious obligation.
The man who gave an average of $369 a year to charity over the previous decade fulfills his religious obligations by cutting a tax check -- a check he's required to cut by law.
Now it's always perilous to take Biden's statements too seriously, but it does seem eminently fair to say that his comments reflect a common, if not universal, attitude among Democrats. Taxes aren't a "necessary evil" so much as a joyous affirmation of the possibilities of government and the lifeblood of a more hopeful society. "Taxes are what you pay to be an American" -- like "membership fees," says Democratic language guru George Lakoff.
President Obama merely says that taxes are necessary to "spread the wealth," which is better for everybody. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman frames the issue more reasonably: "Nobody likes paying taxes ... [but] most Americans also care a lot about the things taxes pay for." In other words, paying taxes -- and raising taxes in Krugman's view -- is the adult, serious, morally responsible thing to do. Government needs every last penny, and holdouts must be smoked out.
Now, whatever the best articulation of liberal attitudes toward taxation may be, reasonable people can agree that they inject a lot of moralizing, righteousness and finger-wagging into the issue.
As one leading Democrat put it: "Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter."
That Democrat was then-Sen. Tom Daschle in 1998. The same Tom Daschle, we've since learned, who failed to pay more than $100,000 in back taxes for perks he received as one of Washington's most relentless influence-peddlers -- that is, until he realized he might receive a job in the Obama administration spending the money most Americans conscientiously send to Washington.
Daschle's hardly alone. The recently confirmed Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, also failed to pay taxes he owed (even though he surely must have known he owed them) until it became politically expedient to pay them. Now he runs the IRS. Take that, suckers.
Meanwhile, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the supreme tax-writing body in the United States, the House Ways and Means Committee, is under investigation for, among other things, dodging taxes. His excuse for his admitted mistakes is that he was sloppy and ignorant, but not criminal. Geithner and Daschle make similar noises.
But doesn't that miss the point?
When moralizing conservatives get caught, say, cheating on their wives or challenging stall mates to robust Greco-Roman wrestling in airport bathrooms, liberals justifiably howl at the hypocrisy of it all (even though conservative moralizing has no teeth, while the IRS has agents with guns). When liberals fail to pay taxes -- the wellspring of a just society -- it's merely, to borrow an old phrase from Daschle, "sad and disappointing," but ultimately not that big a deal.
When he was still running the Democratic Party, Howard Dean made fighting hypocrisy his top priority. "Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings."
Well, I hear a lot of lecturing from Democrats about why I should be ashamed for not liking taxes more because "the children" need it. Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson defended the so-called stimulus bill last week by saying it "shelters the homeless, and heals the sick. It helps us to look forward to a day where we beat our swords into plowshares."
By the Democrats' own logic, not wanting to pay for that is selfish, unpatriotic and immoral. But who do they think tax cheats are cheating?
"I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy," Dean promised. "I'm not going to be lectured as a Democrat -- we've got some pretty strong moral values in my party, and maybe we ought to do a better job standing up and fighting for them."
Yes, I would like to see that myself. That would be change I could believe in.
During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden insisted that paying your taxes is a patriotic duty. No, scratch that. He said that supporting a tax hike was the American thing to do. "It's time to be patriotic," he told America's putative tax slackers. When asked whether he might be questioning the patriotism of people who don't want higher taxes, Biden, as is his wont, took things to the next rhetorical level. Forget patriotism, insisted Joe, paying higher taxes is a religious obligation.
The man who gave an average of $369 a year to charity over the previous decade fulfills his religious obligations by cutting a tax check -- a check he's required to cut by law.
Now it's always perilous to take Biden's statements too seriously, but it does seem eminently fair to say that his comments reflect a common, if not universal, attitude among Democrats. Taxes aren't a "necessary evil" so much as a joyous affirmation of the possibilities of government and the lifeblood of a more hopeful society. "Taxes are what you pay to be an American" -- like "membership fees," says Democratic language guru George Lakoff.
President Obama merely says that taxes are necessary to "spread the wealth," which is better for everybody. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman frames the issue more reasonably: "Nobody likes paying taxes ... [but] most Americans also care a lot about the things taxes pay for." In other words, paying taxes -- and raising taxes in Krugman's view -- is the adult, serious, morally responsible thing to do. Government needs every last penny, and holdouts must be smoked out.
Now, whatever the best articulation of liberal attitudes toward taxation may be, reasonable people can agree that they inject a lot of moralizing, righteousness and finger-wagging into the issue.
As one leading Democrat put it: "Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter."
That Democrat was then-Sen. Tom Daschle in 1998. The same Tom Daschle, we've since learned, who failed to pay more than $100,000 in back taxes for perks he received as one of Washington's most relentless influence-peddlers -- that is, until he realized he might receive a job in the Obama administration spending the money most Americans conscientiously send to Washington.
Daschle's hardly alone. The recently confirmed Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, also failed to pay taxes he owed (even though he surely must have known he owed them) until it became politically expedient to pay them. Now he runs the IRS. Take that, suckers.
Meanwhile, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the supreme tax-writing body in the United States, the House Ways and Means Committee, is under investigation for, among other things, dodging taxes. His excuse for his admitted mistakes is that he was sloppy and ignorant, but not criminal. Geithner and Daschle make similar noises.
But doesn't that miss the point?
When moralizing conservatives get caught, say, cheating on their wives or challenging stall mates to robust Greco-Roman wrestling in airport bathrooms, liberals justifiably howl at the hypocrisy of it all (even though conservative moralizing has no teeth, while the IRS has agents with guns). When liberals fail to pay taxes -- the wellspring of a just society -- it's merely, to borrow an old phrase from Daschle, "sad and disappointing," but ultimately not that big a deal.
When he was still running the Democratic Party, Howard Dean made fighting hypocrisy his top priority. "Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings."
Well, I hear a lot of lecturing from Democrats about why I should be ashamed for not liking taxes more because "the children" need it. Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson defended the so-called stimulus bill last week by saying it "shelters the homeless, and heals the sick. It helps us to look forward to a day where we beat our swords into plowshares."
By the Democrats' own logic, not wanting to pay for that is selfish, unpatriotic and immoral. But who do they think tax cheats are cheating?
"I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy," Dean promised. "I'm not going to be lectured as a Democrat -- we've got some pretty strong moral values in my party, and maybe we ought to do a better job standing up and fighting for them."
Yes, I would like to see that myself. That would be change I could believe in.
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