Tag: tax cheat

The Ivory Tower reports this morning that Michigan's very own Governor Jennifer Granholm has landed smack dab on the Obama administration's short list of potential nominees to fill outgoing Justice David Souter's seat on the United States Supreme Court.

Others on the list: California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor, Diane Pamela Wood and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

Never mind that Granholm has zero days total experience sitting on any judicial bench- she makes up for her relatively amateurish legal credentials with the sort of resume line item that seems to grab President Obama by the throat and refuses to let go.

What Jennifer Granholm has that every other member of that esteemed list lacks (we assume) is the kind of personal history that the President's other early-term appointments indicate he values the most... serious personal tax problems.

The Detroit Free Press reported that an $800 lien was "placed against the Wayne County home of Granholm and her husband in 2006 for failing to file unemployment insurance reports on their nanny."

But that was only the start of the Governor's difficulties with the tax man. Last year the Internal Revenue Service came calling on Jennifer Granholm in an attempt to collect nearly $20,000 in taxes she'd failed to pay on an inaugural committee, dating all the way back to 2003.  To show they were serious they brought a nearly $20,000 tax lien with them.

The lien was necessary, according to Lansing's WILX, because Granholm had ignored at least four previous attempts by the IRS to collect the back taxes. In other words, she isn't just a tax cheat... she is a chronic tax cheater.

The Obama administration has been embarrassed nearly a half-dozen times in the last three months by revelations that their nominees to various high ranking positions had personal histories of tax avoidance.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was the most recent nominee to be tarnished by a tax scandal after she was tabbed to work as the Secretary of Health and Human Resources, a position for which Governor Granholm was also considered. The Washington Times:

The seemingly ever-growing list of nominees with tax issues also includes:

• First HHS Secretary nominee and former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota who filed over $140,000 in back taxes and interest in January after failing to disclose more than $300,000 in income, including the use of a car and driver. His violations of the tax code remain the most impressive and lead to his removing his name for consideration.

• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to pay more than $40,000 in payroll taxes when he worked for the International Monetary Fund, correcting the error before the Senate voted on his nomination.

• The husband of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis paid around $6,400 prior to her nomination vote for tax liens on his Los Angeles auto repair business dating from 1993. The White House said Ms. Solis and her husband were unaware of the lien.

• Chief Performance Officer nominee Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination in the wake of the Daschle tax disclosures after it came to light that she had a $947 tax lien filed against her by the District of Columbia in 2005 for failing to pay compensation taxes for a domestic employee. District records show she owed $298 in unemployment compensation, $48.69 in interest, and $600.00 in penalties that she paid five months later.

A Granholm nomination would represent the sixth Obama selection with serious personal tax issues, a rate of about two per month.

Most Americans pay their taxes and they pay them on time.  Most politicians pay their taxes and pay them on time.  Most Democrats, too.  To not only find but to nominate SIX individuals with personal histories of chronic tax avoidance... someone looking in from the outside could get the idea that President Obama is actively searching for them.

Tax cheats Sebelius, Daschle, Geithner, Solis, Killefer...and now, potentially Granholm.  That's an impressive list of scofflaws-turned-nominees.  

Moreno, Kagan, Napolitano, Sotomayor, Wood and Comey clearly have no chance at an Obama nomination... not with their sparkling records of good citizenship and on-time tax payment.  They might as well throw in the towel. Well, throw in the towel or immediately refuse to pay heir taxes.  Either way.