{"id":222,"date":"2009-02-03T15:09:45","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T15:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/tom-daschle-cant-reform-health.html"},"modified":"2009-02-03T15:09:45","modified_gmt":"2009-02-03T15:09:45","slug":"tom-daschle-cant-reform-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/tom-daschle-cant-reform-health.html","title":{"rendered":"breaking: Tom Daschle withdraws from consideration"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Tom Daschle has officially withdrawn his name from consideration<\/a>. I heard it on Twitter first<\/a>, actually. <\/p>\n

It turns out that Tom Daschle has even more explaining to do<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Daschle’s tax problems<\/a> were even more substantial than earlier reported.<\/p>\n

The
\nreport indicates that Daschle’s failure to pay more than $101,000 taxes
\non the car and driver a wealthy friend let him use from 2005 through
\n2007 is not the only tax issue the former Senate Majority Leader has
\nbeen dealing with since his December nomination prompted a more
\nthorough examination of his income tax returns. <\/p>\n

Mr. Daschle also didn’t report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is beyond embarassing and now has moved into farce – especially since it appears that Daschle didn’t even see fit to inform the President of any of this, even after<\/i> he was nominated. But far worse than these tax issues is the question of how close Dashcle is to the very industries he would be tasked with reforming as head of HHS. The New York Times takes the remarkable step of actually calling for Daschle to withdraw his name<\/a>, and lays out the evidence:<\/p>\n

\n

In both the Geithner and Daschle cases, the failure to pay taxes is
\nattributed to unintentional oversights. But Mr. Daschle is one
\noversight case too many. The American tax system depends heavily on
\nvoluntary compliance. It would send a terrible message to the public if
\nwe ignore the failure of yet another high-level nominee to comply with
\nthe tax laws.<\/p>\n

Mr. Daschle’s financial ties to major players in
\nthe health care industry may prove to be even more troublesome as
\nhealth reform efforts proceed. Like many former power players in
\nWashington, Mr. Daschle cashed in on his political savvy and influence
\nto earn $5 million in recent years, including more than $2 million from
\nAlston & Bird, a law and lobbying firm; more than $2 million from
\nthe private equity firm, InterMedia Advisors, which provided the car
\nand driver; and hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches to
\ninterest groups, including those representing health insurance plans,
\nmedical equipment distributors and pharmacy boards. <\/p>\n

Although
\nMr. Daschle was not a registered lobbyist, he offered policy advice to
\nthe UnitedHealth Group, a huge insurance conglomerate. He was also a
\ntrustee of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, on whose behalf he voiced
\nopposition to a federal loan for a freight rail line near the clinic’s
\nheadquarters in Rochester, Minn. The loan was subsequently denied by
\nthe Federal Railroad Administration.<\/p>\n

Mr. Daschle is another in a
\nlong line of politicians who move cozily between government and
\nindustry. We don’t know that his industry ties would influence his
\njudgments on health issues, but they could potentially throw a cloud
\nover health care reform. Mr. Daschle could clear the atmosphere by
\nwithdrawing his name. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously, I am biased because I know who I would rather have<\/a> as Secretary of Health and Human Services. As Joe Trippi says<\/a>, though, it’s still unlikely that Howard Dean will be tapped for the job. And in that case, I don’t know if I care whether Daschle is selected or not. I do predict right now however that we won’t see any meaningful health-care reform in Obama’s first term – as the partisan opposition rightly points out<\/a>, establishment old-timers like Daschle aren’t going to take risks and rock the boat. And if Daschle withdraws, it’s more likely Obama will appoint someone else in his mold rather than someone like Dean who would get the job done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Tom Daschle has officially withdrawn his name from consideration. I heard it on Twitter first, actually. It turns out that Tom Daschle has even more explaining to do: Daschle’s tax problems were even more substantial than earlier reported. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}