Yesterday (Jan. 31) the Washington Post reported that Daschle recently owed $128,000 in federal back taxes—we have not yet had word on whether the IRS liability will also entail some state back taxes—over three years of tax returns:

“The back taxes, along with $12,000 in interest and penalties, involved unreported consulting fees, questionable charitable contributions, and a car and driver provided by a private equity firm run by entrepreneur and longtime Democratic Party donor Leo J. Hindery Jr., according to a confidential draft report prepared by Senate Finance Committee staff.

A spokeswoman for Daschle confirmed last night that he recently paid back taxes in excess of $100,000. She said that Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, and his accountant discovered the error regarding the luxury car service and reported it to the committee after his vetting was completed.

Daschle paid the back taxes six days before his first Senate confirmation hearing with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Finance Committee, however, has jurisdiction over his nomination.”

The unpaid taxes, over which Daschle has reportedly been grilled by senators behind closed doors, stem from three separate categories of income reporting on the tax returns. Daschle reportedly failed to realize that the services of a car and driver (not “car/driver” as seen on Fox, which wd mean either-or) were something of material value, to be taxed as income. He also failed to include adequate documentation for some charitable contributions he claimed. He also did not report, according to the WP, $83,000 in consulting fees he has received since leaving the Senate in 2005.

Today the Post reported that Daschle also knew about his tax liabilities—or at least some of them—for months before he informed the Obama team:

“Thomas A. Daschle waited nearly a month after being nominated to be secretary of health and human services before informing Barack Obama that he had not paid years of back taxes for the use of a car and driver provided by a wealthy New York investor.

Daschle, one of Obama's earliest and most ardent campaign supporters, paid $140,000 to the U.S. Treasury on Jan. 2 and about two days later informed the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, according to an account provided by his spokeswoman and confirmed by the Obama administration.

Although Daschle had known since June 2008 that he needed to correct his tax returns, he never expected the amount to be such a "jaw-dropping" sum and "thought it was being taken care of" by his accountant, spokeswoman Jenny Backus said.”

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

If Daschle merits his Washington, D.C., friendships—the social network now being touted, rather unbecomingly, by D.C. insiders in print and on the airwaves—then this would be the ideal time, if that’s the right phrase, for him to show it. Now is the time for Daschle to bow out gracefully, to withdraw his name for consideration for a Cabinet post. Ideally, he would do well to express gracious support in stepping aside for Dr. Howard Dean as head of Health and Human Services instead. Dr. Dean—also the repeatedly reelected and popular former governor of Vermont, former presidential candidate, and former head of the Democratic National Committee in its most successful era in decades—is not only a physician himself. He has also shown sufficient independence of the political world and the financial industry to merit appointment where matters of health are at stake.

Just for lagniappe, Dean’s wife is also a physician, rather than a lobbyist.

Any Republicans sincerely concerned about Daschle’s nomination on the merits would also do well to advocate Howard Dean for HHS.

Without dwelling on the negatives too much, it is still obvious that the back taxes are only part of the melancholy picture here. As the Post also mentions,

“The disclosure of Daschle's tax problems coincided with the release of the financial statement he submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, which details for the first time exactly how, without becoming a registered lobbyist, he made millions of dollars giving public speeches and private counsel to insurers, hospitals, realtors, farmers, energy firms and telecommunications companies with complex regulatory and legislative interests in Washington.”

I personally respected Sen. Daschle for his laudable firmness and calmness—rationality—during the anthrax attacks. Under considerable political pressure to be stampeded into hysteria like many other holders of public office, Daschle, to whom one of the anthrax letters was addressed, made an actual rational statement. Remembering his farm background, he pointed out that anthrax (like tetanus) has always been a risk factor on farms, to be dealt with by taking sensible steps—first you avoid contact with it; then if necessary you take antibiotics. Incidentally, that wave of profiteering over questionable anthrax ‘vaccines’, which cost the taxpayers—as always—millions of dollars--still needs adequate investigation.

That said, Daschle is not exactly looking like the best person to oversee that kind of investigation right now. Someone in Daschle’s position who cozies up, in the conventional Washington revolving door, to the industries that most need monitoring, and then does not even pay adequate taxes on his gains from the cozying up, is not going to look good as public watchdog.

As ever, the key question is Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?