A modest tax proposal

You'll forgive me, gentle reader, if I digress from personal productivity and management insights for just a moment to vent my spleen about one particular issue that has me rather angry.  Currently, we are being fed a load of manure about the efficacy and trustworthiness of some proposed officials in the Obama administration, and it sticks in my craw to think that Geithner and Daschle are in positions to be Treasury Secretary and HHS Secretary even though they failed to pay their taxes.  What does this say about these individuals?  There are basically three choices:

1. It was all a big mistake.  They didn't pay attention to the tax codes and never recognized that they should have paid these taxes.  So, average Americans get punitive penalties for not paying their taxes and we are expected to do so promptly.  These two guys paid up years later with no fees or penalties.  Both of these gentlemen will run significant agencies of the federal government.  If we accept the premise that it was all an oversight, why should we trust them with the management of a significant portion of the government?
2. They knew they needed to pay taxes but didn't understand or didn't think the taxes applied to them, or couldn't figure out how to do them.  Again, if this is the case, then do they deserve to be running a complex agency?  Average everyday people I know struggle to do their taxes but they do them.  Perhaps we can state that the income taxes are simply too difficult.
3. They chose to ignore the fact that they needed to pay taxes.  Perhaps they've lived in a bubble too long and no longer believe that the rules that apply to many of us also apply to them.  Why does Charlie Rangel (Congressman from NY) get to skip paying taxes on condominiums in the Dominican Republic, and have four rent controlled apartments in NYC?  Are these individuals different from the rest of us and somehow above the law?

Where is the outrage about the fact that these financial and political geniuses seem to believe they don't have to abide by the same laws that the rest of us must follow?  Have we allowed an untouchable political class to evolve that may pass laws that we must obey but have allowed them to become immune to the same laws?  Doesn't that begin to smack of royalty?  Well, I suppose if senate seats can be almost handed down (to Caroline Kennedy, or Beau Biden, or Lisa Murkowski) then we have created a royalty.

Here's a modest suggestion to level the playing field.  Let's propose a new law which states that anyone running for federal office is REQUIRED to be audited by the IRS when running, and every year in which the person serves in a congressional role, as a senior member of the executive branch, and so on.  This should apply especially to anyone who writes the laws or enforces the laws on financial matters or lobbying.  At least in this way we can all go to bed at night thinking that Timothy Geithner and Tom Daschle have to pay their taxes in the same way that we do, and if they don't, will have to cough up the same fees, and penalties, that the average Joe does.

Otherwise we risk becoming a nation not just with a professional political class, but one that can create and enforce laws on the majority of us that they themselves can ignore.

Comments

[nkenig]

I agree completely. The state of our government has got me in a state of apoplexy.