With the news that is coming out of Washington these days, itís easy to ask if we are the only ones paying our taxes.

Last week, Tom Daschle withdrew as President Barack Obama's nominee to be health and human services secretary because of his failure to fully pay his taxes from 2005 through 2007. Last month, Daschle paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest.

Daschle's withdrawl came less than three hours after another Obama nominee also withdrew from consideration, and also over tax problems. Nancy Killefer, nominated by Obama to be the government's first chief performance officer, said she didn't want her bungling of payroll taxes on her household help to be a distraction. Last week, the Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary despite his tax problems.

At least, Daschle and Killefer did the right thing by dropping out of the confirmation process. Daschle said he would have been unable to operate "with the full faith of Congress and the American people."

Geithner got through the process by virtue of being first on the list in confirmation hearings. Sins, like the failure to pay a few tax dollars, can be overlooked on an isolated basis, but Geithner brought attention to the subject and Obama had to take a huge hit when both Daschle and Killefer again failed the "tax" test. There was no way the tax sin would be forgiven a second and even third time.

In fact, if you could privately ask Obama which person he would select to squeeze through confirmation, he probably would pick Daschle hands down.

Daschleís withdrawal dealt heavy blows to both speedy health care reform and Obama's hopes for a smooth start in the White House. Obama had actually tagged Daschle for two jobs. He wanted Daschle to be White House health czar on top of being the boss of the Health and Human Services Department.

Daschle was actually the third high-profile Obama nominee to bow out. Obama initially had tapped Bill Richardson to be Commerce secretary, but the New Mexico governor withdrew amid a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to his political donors.

Obama had hoped for a smoother start to his administration. But it has been a rather rough start since he has lost three of his key picks early on and Congress is so far balking at his stimulus plan, which he had hoped would get a quick passage. Obama's honeymoon has been short indeed.

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