There's an old saying that goes something like this: Character is doing the right thing when no one is looking. It's impossible to attribute that to a single individual since any search of quotes on character turns up so many variants.
The sentiment expressed makes so much common sense that it almost seems universal. Universal to all but perhaps a handful of Democrats who feel entitled to flaunt the law and only make it right when they are caught and it's necessary to make restitution to gain office.
No Republican would ever be permitted the same leeway.
First there was Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the committee that writes the tax laws. Rangel didn't pay tax on income from his vacation rental property and laughingly claimed he "didn't know" he had to.
Then there was Treasury Secretary Geithner who only paid nearly $43,000 in back taxes when his nomination for the cabinet post was in the bag. Democrats rushed to his defense calling it an "honest mistake."
Daschle's "Honest Mistake"
Daschle Pays $100k in Back Taxes Over Car Travel
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post
January 30, 2009
Former senator Thomas A. Daschle, nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, paid more than $100,000 in back taxes and interest this month for the use of a car and driver over the past three years, the White House said tonight.
Daschle spokeswoman Jenny Backus said that Daschle "naively" believed the car service was a "generous offer from a friend," and he discovered only last summer that it is considered reportable income.
Daschle brought the matter to the attention of the Senate Finance Committee "when he submitted his nomination forms," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in an e-mailed statement tonight. "We are confident the committee is going to schedule a hearing for him very soon and he will be confirmed."
The committee plans to meet privately with Daschle on Monday evening to review his financial records.
...
Tax laws required Daschle to declare the services on his income taxes, but Daschle did not correct the violation until during his vetting to head HHS. In amending his tax returns for 2005 through 2007, he paid $101,943 in back taxes plus interest, ABC reported.
Last year, Daschle was paid more than $2 million in salary from Hindery's firm, in addition to the $2 million he earned as a senior adviser at the law firm of Alston and Bird.
Are Democrats unpatriotic?
Paid a $2 million salary and a car and driver to boot and the man stiffs Uncle Sam? Remember when V.P. candidate Joe Biden said: it was "patriotic" to pay higher taxes and insisted Democrats "Want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class?"
Are Tom Daschle, Secretary Geithner and Charlie Rangel trying to steal money from the middle class?
Right on cue Democrats are once again circling the wagons, this time around Daschle whose spokesman insisted the former Senate Majority Leader "naively" believed the car service was a "generous offer from a friend." "The president has confidence that Sen. Daschle is the right person to lead the fight for health care reform," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. Another official likened the situation to "bumps along the road but they handle it.”
Either Pay Your Taxes or Join the Obama Cabinet!
Leonna Helmsley (photo right), the New York Real Estate tycoon's widow who said "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes", went to jail after it was discovered she used corporate assets to remodel her home.
Had Helmsley been nominated to be in a Democrat cabinet she'd have been celebrated by Democrats instead of prosecuted.
Will we ever have meaningful ethics reform in Washington if one party continues to excuse it's members from the same rules imposed on the rest of us?
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