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Another One Bites the Dust...Obama'a Would-have-been Chief Performance Officer Another Tax Evader

My good friend Dana, from Delaware Watch, recently trumpeted Barack Obama's lofty proclamations concerning the creation and appointment of a 'Chief Performance Officer' in the White House, namely in the person of Nancy Killefer.

In the Delaware Watch post titled "Sometimes You Must Spend In Order to Save", Dana also took the opportunity to take a swipe at the Delaware Libertarian commenters as "doctrinaire".

Not sure any of us objected to such a position or its purpose, but we were certainly skewered as unthinking opposers of government, rather than thoughtful and critical questioners of a government so large that it is hell-bound to spawn its own perpetual growth, patronage, cronyism, and institutional hypocrisy...all inflicted on taxpayers at their own expense.

"Likewise, Brarack Obama, keeping a campaign pledge, plans to create a new White House position called the Chief Performance Officer in order to save the federal government money...

So contrary to the doctrinaire commenters at Delaware Libertarian, sometimes you must spend in order to save and grow government in order to shrink it wisely."

Well, reality sure has a way of smacking down premature triumphalism (see George W. Bush and every neocon re: Iraq).

WASHINGTON — Nancy Killefer says she is withdrawing her candidacy for chief performance officer because she doesn't want her tax issue to become a "distraction."

In a letter to President Barack Obama, Killefer said she understands that the duties of chief performance officer are urgent and any delays must be avoided.

She said she was reluctantly withdrawing her name from consideration.

Killefer failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help. She was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after Obama announced their selection.


We can certainly start "saving" the government money by having wealthy, connected Democrats start paying their taxes....before they take cushy insidery government jobs under Barack Obama.

People like this are no better than the greedy, self-serving corporatists. Washington is rife with them. I am sure Obama's tenure will see no change, if not worse.

UPDATE :


A senior administration official says the tax issues surrounding former chief performance officer nominee Nancy Killefer are "a little more complicated" than some reports have suggested...

This official says the vetting team was aware of all Killefer’s tax issues, and that she was immediately forthcoming about them. Going back to the fall, the transition had decided they wanted her for this role when they unveiled the economic team, but held off on announcing her while they determined if they were comfortable with her tax issues. They decided they were, and announced Killefer about two weeks after the rest of the team

Comments

I didn't have any problem with the creation of the position itself; the way it was presented I think it was needed (though probably impossible).

I have a feeling that this lousy $900 in unemployment taxes that she settled up with back in 2005 isn't the whole story, though.
Not Duped said…
I get it.. We need to pay more taxes and They don't.

John Edwards was right. There is two Americas. Most of us and the hypocrites that now occupy DC.
Not Duped said…
How about just "Obama Bites!"
Delaware Watch said…
I don't get what you are gloating over here, Tyler. A candidate for the position isn't assuming it. The position itself is till intact and will be filled by someone else.

So, put away the party hats, ol' boy.
Tyler Nixon said…
Nah, I'm alright thanks Dana.

The point is about hypocrisy (not yours) and what is a veneer of change, rather than the real thing.

You can invent more government to oversee more government ad infinitum, and it all means a hill of beans when the people running government are about control, power, privilege, and paternalism.

This is obvious in anyone who would ever operate on the pretext that the tax evasion or avoidance activities of top-tier appointees are only problematic or disqualifying when they become a "distraction" to the underlying political agendas underway.

It is also about judgment, or lack of it, in people wielding immense power and (even more so) in those looking to amass more of it.

Ethics are not about exceptions to the rule nor testing the limits of what you can get away with. But so far this is all I have seen from the Obama administration, before we even get to public policy.

"Trust us" just doesn't cut it with me, no matter who the bosses saying it happen to be.
Bowly said…
I would much rather be "doctrinaire" than "make s#!t up as I go along," which is what happens when you don't have a principled foundation.

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