Free Republic

Daschle's Lobbyist Wife Might Complicate New Post The newly pegged secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, might be facing some questions about his wife's lobbying activities. President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat to fill the cabinet post, and that of "health czar." The 59-year-old Daschle, according to sources speaking to The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly and Chris Cillizza, is expected to take the jobs. Daschle's new position might be complicated by his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who is a registered lobbyist with the Washington firm of Baker,...

When Barack Obama announced in early December that he had selected Tom Daschle to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services as well as his "health care policy czar," Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi -- who had spent several months studying the inner workings of the 2006 Congress in order to profile its limitless corruption -- wrote the following reaction on his blog...

Daschle earned $220,000 from health care industryTom Daschle collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in fees in the last two years speaking to leaders of the industry President Barack Obama wants him to reform as the administration's health secretary. That was just a portion of the more than $5.2 million the former South Dakota senator earned as he advised insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries — real estate, energy and telecommunications among them, according to a financial statement filed with the Office of Government Ethics. Daschle's finances are drawing additional scrutiny because he failed to pay...

Tom Daschle’s tax issue is simply one facet of the corruption he and his lobbyist wife have been involved in. “The national press corps didn‘t bother to tell you why Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ Senate leader, decided at the 11th hour not to run for president: In the end, he calculated that he couldn‘t survive scrutiny of his persistent service to the clients of his wife. Linda Daschle has been one of the airline industry’s top lobbyists for two decades — when she wasn‘t busy running the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which explains why, just 11 days after the 911...

Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the Obama administration, two Democrats said Monday. Leo Hindery, whose InterMedia Partners employed the former Senate majority leader, had been mentioned as a possible secretary of commerce or U.S. trade representative. "Tom was pushing for him," said one Democratic source. Obama's aides rejected Daschle's suggestion that a top job go to Hindery, for whose private equity fund Daschle had served as a rainmaker and adviser. Hindery, 61, hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing in Daschle's failure...

(CNSNews.com) – During his 26 years in Congress, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) consistently supported tax hikes, opposed tax cuts and had tough words for tax scofflaws. “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter,” Daschle said in 1998, according to the Congressional Record. Daschle, nominated to serve as President Barack Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest last week. The tax and penalties stem from a free car service provided to Daschle from 2005 through 2007. Although the service was...

Back before Tom Daschle had dumped his first wife for Miss Kansas, and before he had figured out how to pig out at the gov't/lobbyist trough, he tried to portray himself as a man of the people, modest and frugal. My how times have changed in the past 23 years.

At the center of the issues that have complicated Tom Daschle's nomination to run the HHS is his relationship with Leo Hindery, the politically connected founder of the private equity firm InterMedia. Taxes aside, we still don't know much about what Hindery got for the $1 million-a-year consulting fee he paid Daschle. Hindery and his colleagues at InterMedia aren't speaking, and the New York Times reports only that, according to a Daschle spokeswoman, "[i]n addition to lending the prestige of his name, Mr. Daschle traveled to help raise money from investors for Mr. Hindery's new venture". But whatever Daschle...

One of the unanswered questions concerning Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle’s tax problem is why it suddenly occurred to Daschle, in June 2008, that the car and driver he had been provided by a wealthy Democratic donor in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 might count as income and thus be subject to taxes — taxes which Daschle had not paid.

In the current controversy regarding Tom Daschle's failure to report income (and thereby evade the taxes on that income), Daschle has portrayed himself as the most honest person in America, who always intended to pay all the taxes he owes, and who simply made an honest mistake. But history shows that this is not the first time Daschle has dodged taxes, raising even more questions about Daschle's veracity and fitness for office.

“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

....The Democratic Party is overflowing with scandal although no one in the media is connecting the dots, but let me try: The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee (Dodd) to "funky" loans from one of the banks his committee is supposedly regulation. The Chairman of the House Banking Committee refused regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until it was much too late. This may or may not have to do with the fact that his former lover (and Still Close Friend) was a high ranking executive at Fannie. Congressman Charlie Rangel is the head of the House Ways and...

Four days before President Bush makes his State of the Union address, the Senate's top Democrat mounted a fresh attack Friday on Bush's tax cut plan and offered an alternative that he said would give the sluggish economy a quick boost. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle proposed giving working families tax rebates of up to $1,200, extending benefits to the unemployed, giving businesses new tax breaks and pumping $40 billion to financially distressed cities and states. With Republicans controlling Congress, Daschle's $112 billion proposal was essentially a manifesto of opposition that has almost no chance of becoming law. B ut...