Politico: Health care groups paid (Puff) Daschle $220k

Tom Daschle, under fire for not paying taxes, made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show.

Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who President Obama has tapped to overhaul the nation’s health care system, was paid $220,000 to give speeches to outfits that have a vested interest in the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of health and human services.

Among the companies and groups paying thousands of dollars a pop to book Daschle were some that stand to gain or lose the most depending on the results of Obama’s efforts to enact universal health.

For instance, the Health Industry Distributors Association plunked down $14,000 to land the former Senate Democratic leader in March 2008. The association, which represents medical products distributors, boasts on its website that Daschle met with it after he was nominated to discuss “the impact an Obama administration will have on the industry.”

This week, the group began openly lobbying him, sending him a letter urging him to rescind a rule requiring competitive bidding of Medicare contracts.

Another organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama’s plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.

There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before health care groups.

The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.

That includes more than $2 million in consulting fees from InterMedia Advisors, a private equity firm.

Daschle, who represented South Dakota in the Senate for three terms, initially failed to pay taxes on the free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by InterMedia’s founder, high-rolling Democratic donor Leo Hindery Jr., according to the New York Times. It reported that Daschle this month paid more than $100,000 in back taxes and filed amended tax returns.

Daschle reported $182,520.26 of “company provided transportation” on the disclosure form, which also indicates he owns a stake in the company worth between $200,000 and $500,000, as well as a “5 % limited partner profit sharing interest.”

But he reported that only about half of his interest is vested, and he indicates that “upon confirmation, I will divest all my vested shares and unvested shares and relinquish any benefit to which I may otherwise be entitled.”

Daschle reported that he has been a consultant and chair of the company’s advisory board since January 2005, the same month he left the Senate after being upset in his reelection bid by Republican John Thune.

He also became an adviser to the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird, which paid him $2.1 million in wages last year and also provided him a 401k and profit sharing plan worth between $100,000 and $250,000, according to the report.

In his three years at the firm, it’s earned more than $16 million lobbying on behalf of some of the health care industry’s most powerful interests before the department he’s in line to lead. Though Daschle himself did not register to lobby for the firm, he has advised the firm’s clients on health care issues, according to the firm’s website.

His disclosure indicates he provided “policy advice” to such clients as United Health, AT&T and the politically connected consulting shop Glover Park Group.

After leaving the Senate, Daschle also landed a host of lucrative board spots, including with the energy giant BP Corporation, which paid him $250,000 in fees, developer CB Richard Ellis, which paid $121,000, and ethanol processor Mascoma Corporation, which paid him $75,000, according to the disclosure.

It shows that Daschle has hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks and options from CB Richard Ellis and Mascoma, though he indicated he forfeited his unvested stock options and wrote that “if confirmed, I will divest my vested stock options with CB Richard Ellis.”

He reported owning homes worth as much as $250,000 each in Aberdeen, S.D., and Altus, Okla., with his wife, a high-powered lobbyist for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

Daschle wasn’t required to disclose her income, but did report that her retirement plans through the firm were worth more than $260,000.

>He reported owning homes worth as much as $250,000 each in Aberdeen, S.D., and Altus, Okla., with his wife, a high-powered lobbyist for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.<

How modest! Does he still claim S.D. as his home state for tax purposes, while living in the $2 million dollar home in Virginia?? Who owns his home now, since it isn’t disclosed: perhaps a rich friend who’s keeping him in the lifestyle he has grown accustomed to as king of the senate, but in such a way that he can avoid high VA income taxes??? Or has he totally changed his ways and lives modestly in Altus, OK, where he conducts all his high-powered million dollar lobbying from? (sure).

http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore090803.asp

On June 10, 2003, the New York Times reported on a $20 billion Pentagon plan to lease air refueling tankers from the Boeing Company. The newspaper cited that liberal and conservative groups opposed to the arrangement called it a "sweetheart deal" that must be approved by Congress.

The article pointed out that Boeing has hired lobbyist Linda Daschle, the wife of the Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to represent the company.

South Dakota's largest newspaper, the Argus Leader, is not reporting the story. In fact, the Argus Leader never prints a story about the lobbying of Linda Daschle. In recent weeks, Executive Editor Randell Beck has been quoted as saying that this is because the Argus Leader doesn't report on the wives of candidates.

The Argus Leader did write a 1995 editorial critical of Marianne Gingrich, wife of the House Speaker, Republican Newt Gingrich, for taking a position with Israel Export Development Company. The newspaper wrote, "The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard: Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearances of impropriety."

In 1990, the South Dakota newspaper published a thirty-six paragraph article about Harriet Pressler, wife of Republican Sen. Larry Pressler that suggested the senator had used his office to help his wife's real estate business. By contrast, the recent purchase of a $2 million Washington, DC home by Sen. Daschle and his wife is mentioned by the paper in only five sentences.

Last week, South Dakota businessman Neal Tapio accused the Argus Leader and its political reporter David Kranz of covering up a long association between the senator and Kranz that goes back 30 years. The Argus Leader has refused to acknowledge or disclose that relationship. Tapio implies that the newspaper's reporting has been skewed in favor of the powerful senator and against his critics.

Linda Daschle's lobbying has long been a source of potential conflict of interest issues. Her firm's clients include American Airlines, a recent recipient of billions in taxpayer funds to keep the company in business. Another client, L-3 International, a manufacturer of baggage screening equipment, won a lucrative contract from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2000.

Mrs. Daschle had been an official with the FAA before joining the lobbying firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman and Caldwell.

None of this makes it to the pages of the Argus Leader. Even the Daschles' refusal to make their income tax returns public didn't get a notice from the same publication that aggressively pursued Harriet Pressler a decade ago.

When Kranz was with the Mitchell Daily Republic in 1982, he wrote an opinion piece that praised Mr. Daschle for releasing his income tax returns and criticized his opponent Clint Roberts for not doing so. Kranz wrote, "We believe it is the obligation of a candidate to produce the financial health as represented in his federal income tax returns."

Kranz has yet to call for the release of the Daschles' returns that would reveal a combined income estimated at $6 million.

TOM AND LINDA

S.D. MANSION (there's also a D.C. estate where the Daschles held fund-raisers for Hillary).

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