President Barack Obama has admitted that he made a mistake in handling the nomination of Tom Daschle. Daschle had been tapped by President Obama as his choice for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services until revelations that Daschle had made a number of errors on his taxes were made public. Daschle called the omissions honest mistakes and recently paid back the taxes and interest.
Many taxpayers (including this one) felt it was a little too little, too late.
Obama seems to agree. He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I think I screwed up. And, I take responsibility for it and we’re going to make sure we fix it so it doesn’t happen again.” He later said, “…I don’t want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards — one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.”
Of course, that’s exactly what you guys were saying on the blog. And that’s exactly what it looked like.
CNN readers seem to think that Obama should focus dollars on more stimulus checks instead of infrastructure. Check out these recent poll results (as of 12/11/08 11:06am):
Of course, my money’s on infrastructure improvements a la FDR. My best guess is that Obama’s team will advise that the job market – not the consumer market – needs the biggest boost.
Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in America, according to Fortune 500. According to Good Jobs First, Wal-Mart recently posted earnings of $350 billion in annual revenue and reported a profit of $11 billion (with a b).
One thing is clear about Wal-Mart: they don’t like to spend money. My mom always said, “That’s how the rich stay rich.” I guess she was right.
In yet another blow to its image, an investigation of Wal-Mart’s local property tax records indicates that Wal-Mart systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and government services. Based on a large national sample of Wal-Mart stores and a review of all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005, Good Jobs First, a self-described “national policy resource center for grassroots groups and public officials, promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families” has concluded that Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. Additionally, Good Jobs First reports that, at many facilities, there have been appeals in multiple years, totaling more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide (you can download the report here as a pdf).
It seems that Wal-Mart doesn’t want to pay its fair share.
