So you're supposed to PAY your taxes?

Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority leader from South Dakota and Obama's nominee for director of Health and Human Services, pulled out of the running today a week or so after it was revealed that he failed to pay more than $100,000 of taxes over the past several years. So, apparently, ends the nascent second-chance political career.

This in addition to the withdrawl from consideration by Nancy Killefer, White House performance officer, earlier in the day, also for tax reasons. I guess Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary nominee whose tax problems have been well documented over the past several weeks, got lucky because he was the first one we learned about. Things might've been different if Daschle's and Killefer's problems had preceded him.

So Obama's honeymoon officially lasted about a week. Since then, problems with his nominees and the looming fight over the stimulus plan have given him loads of problems. How will he handle it? There's nothing we can do but wait and see.

Rich People Always Forget to Pay Taxes

I was wrong about Caroline Kennedy. She didn't drop out, according to the New York Times, because she couldn't take the heat. She dropped out due to "problems involving taxes and a household employee." I guess she, like Timothy Geithner, failed to pay enough taxes on her considerable (though still-secret) income. Also like Geithner, it's possible she employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. In national politics, that's a no-no.

For me, this only confirms that Kennedy was a bad choice for NY Senator. At least Geithner has the job of Chairman of the New York Fed on his resume. His errors probably weren't due to incompetance. Hers...well you can't be sure one way or the other.

Her candidacy has been a joke from the beginning, from her liberal use of the phrase "you know" in an interview to her disastrous response to reporters' queries about her motivations - she angrily asked why the reporters didn't write for a women's magazine. Doesn't sound very feminist to me. Doesn't sound very senatorial, either.

The Bailout needs Bailing Out

Timothy Geithner, PRESIDENT Obama's Treasury Secretary nominee, said today during testimony before a Senate panel that the bailout measures passed late last year needed serious overhauling:

"'Many people believe the program has allowed too much upside for financial institutions, while doing too little for small business owners, families who are struggling to keep their jobs and make ends meet, and innocent homeowners,' Geithner said."

I don't think bailing out big financial institutions was a mistake. After all, look what the collapse of Bear Sterns and Lehman Bro's did to the economy as a whole. But I find it refreshing that a powerful government official is actually concerned about helping individuals. Not out of charity, but out of necessity.

That's something that the Bush administration and the rest of the neocons refuse/d to acknowledge. Helping individuals helps everyone, including the Fat Cats. Only helping the Fat Cats doesn't necessarily help anyone else out. Trickle down doesn't work. It didn't work in the 1930s and it didn't work in the 2000s.