… Republicans had also signaled that they would grill Daschle on conflict-of-interest issues, noting that the president’s choice to lead a healthcare overhaul had accepted more than $5 million in speaking and consulting fees from the healthcare industry in the past two years.
From Talking Points Memo:
Daschle’s coziness with corporate interests, many of whom will have key business before Congress and the Obama administration, could complicate the larger task of reducing the influence of the private sector in Washington.
… [T]here’s nothing explicitly nefarious about Daschle’s work on behalf of health insurers. But interests like AHIP and UnitedHealth have, by and large, stood in the way of efforts to remove our healthcare system from the grip of private interests, which many see as a prerequisite for real reform. Of course, that likely won’t happen without at least neutralizing the opposition of the private insurers — so perhaps Daschle’s ties to those insurers make him ideally suited for the role. But at the very least, it would be nice to know what kind of “policy advice” he gave his corporate clients.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:19AM
Don’t kick a limousine liberal when he’s down, UD.
Besides, he still has peeps at the IRS, and thanks to your blog, THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!
February 4th, 2009 at 8:36AM
I’m married to a European, tp. He thinks Americans pay far too little in taxes.
If anything, we overpay. Can you get in trouble for overpaying?
February 4th, 2009 at 11:05AM
Oh, indeed you can, UD. I was once sent a peremptory demand to pay an extra $750 with basically no reason provided except, "we say so." After spending countless hours on hold and speaking with several clueless agents, it emerged that they were trying to charge me payroll tax on non-wage income(clearly documented as such), which as a dumb and honest Midwestern hick I had dutifully reported. One agent let it slip that this was suspicious in itself, since academic types rarely reported such income.