The New York Times is reporting that Tom Daschle, the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, also made an “honest mistake” and failed to pay some taxes. He’s paid “more than $100,000″ so all is forgiven and he’s expected to be approved.

This makes me wonder the following:

Can enough people be nominated so that the financial bailout can be covered in back taxes? The bailout is costly so we’ll probably have to go bi-partisan and nominate republicans. Although the Dems have a pretty good percentage going so far, 15 cabinet posts and over $134,000 collected. But we need over $800 billion for the bailout, that’s a lot of nominations. Perhaps the cabinet posts could be auctioned and given to the people who owe (and pay) the most back taxes.

Should every Congressman and Senator be vetted for a cabinet post so that they can learn of their “honest mistakes” and make it all right? Can Senator Dodd be first?

Will the feds now say the tax laws are so complicated that even people who make the laws can’t understand them? The slogan can be “Tax reform so simple even a cabinet secretary can figure it out.”

Why is President Obama picking people that can’t run their own finances to run the government? (Yea, assumes the “honest mistake” explanation but I figure whether it’s corruption or incompetence they probably aren’t the best choice.) It just seems wrong that our Treasury Secretary uses Turbo Tax to do his taxes and gets it wrong. Make me think the government will run on Quickbooks and the guy using it doesn’t know software is only as good as the user and the information put in.

Will Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Linda Chavez and Bernie Karik pay their nanny back taxes and get renominated to the Supreme Court (Baird, Wood) or Cabinet (Chavez, Karik) now that such things are seen as honest mistakes and can be cleared up with a check? (Well, maybe not Kerik as he had more than tax problems.) Guess we now know what change Obama is bringing to government – new, even lower standards.

Not a question – but an observation, these public servants are paid so well (not necessarily for their official government work) that they can write checks for $34,000 and $100,000 at the drop of a hat in order to secure another public servant job that pays $191,000 a year. Do they even bother to still claim they work for the people?