Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (23 page)

In the most egregious instance, Kirk improperly deducted more than $17,000 as entertainment expenses for the cost of Mavericks’ tickets, nearly half of which was not substantiated .
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Why Kirk’s tax troubles were deemed “minor” by the White House, while those of would-be performance czar Nancy Killefer—who withdrew from her nomination over unpaid household taxes worth a tenth as much as Kirk’s—became a major issue, is a question Obama’s feminist supporters curiously failed to ask.
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In any case, Capitol Hill fell in line and agreed with the White House that he was the “right man for the job.”
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And Jay Leno’s mockery of the party of tax cheats hit the nail on the head:

“I guess the Democrats think I.R.S. means, ‘I’m really sorry.’”

HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: THE NOMINEE WHO COULDN’T COUNT

She was supposed to be a “safe” choice after the Daschle debacle. But Democrat Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius came with her own set of tax troubles and accounting problems. In March 2009, she admitted in a letter disclosed to the press that she had made “unintentional errors” on her taxes and corrected her returns from three different years. The Democrat head of the Senate Finance Committee rushed to support her: “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Governor Sebelius has the political experience, determination, and bipartisan work ethic to get the job done with Congress this year,” Senator Max Baucus wrote. “She’s the right person for the job.”
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By now, the public was learning that “right person for the job” was code for tax scofflaw in the age of Obama. Sebelius coughed up $7,000 in back taxes, along with $878 in interest for debt owed between 2005 and 2007.

Two weeks later, more trouble with math: Sebelius was forced to admit that she lowballed the amount of political contributions she had received from infamous late-term abortion doctor George Tiller. In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee dated April 2, 2009, Sebelius revealed that she had received nearly three times as much cash from Tiller as she had initially disclosed. Here is the full question and response between GOP Senator Jon Kyl and Sebelius:

There has been a lot of attention concerning your relationship with George Tiller, a doctor who has performed late term abortions in Kansas. Can you describe your relationship with Mr. Tiller? Has he ever contributed to your campaign or has your PAC ever received money from Mr. Tiller or a PAC related to Mr. Tiller? Have you ever hosted Mr. Tiller at an event during your tenure as Governor of Kansas?

Answer: I regret that there was an inadvertent omission in my previous response to this question. The oversight led to an incomplete listing of certain PAC contributions as well as contributions from Dr. Tiller’s business. After further review of the records at the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, including electronic records and all available paper records dating back to 1986, I have provided an updated answer below.

I have been familiar with Dr. Tiller for many years because he lives and works in Kansas. Like many Kansans, he contributed to my campaign for Insurance Commissioner; he also contributed to the Bluestem Fund, a leadership PAC established primarily to support candidates for the Kansas Legislature.

Between 1990 and 2001, my campaign received $11,100 from Dr. Tiller. In addition, my campaign also received $2,250 from Mrs. Tiller, $2,250 from Women’s Health Care Services, and $1,000 from the Pro Choice Action League, which in media reports has been associated with Dr. Tiller.

In 2000, the Bluestem Fund received $10,000 from Dr. Tiller. In addition, between 2001 and 2002, the Bluestem Fund received $13,000 from Women’s Health Care Services. I am aware of no donations from Dr. Tiller, from any PAC related to him, from Mrs. Tiller, or from Women’s Health Care Services since 2002.

Throughout the course of my career, I have donated a lunch, dinner, or reception to non-profit organizations at their annual auctions. I did so every year as Insurance Commissioner and have done so every year as Governor. In 2006, I donated a reception at Cedar Crest to the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus for their annual fundraiser, the Torch Dinner. Dr. Tiller bid on and won that auction item. As a result, an afternoon event lasting approximately one hour was held at Cedar Crest, with Dr. Tiller and his staff in attendance. All costs were reimbursed to the state.
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Funny how all these unintentional “goofs,” “errors,” and financial misstatements always err on the side of understating the problem.

LABOR SECRETARY HILDA SOLIS: SELF-LOBBYING UNION LACKEY

Upon presenting her with the 2000 “Profile in Courage Award,” Senator Ted Kennedy praised California Democrat Congresswoman Hilda Solis for her “ability and dedication to overcome the entrenched opposition of special interest groups.” Solis, Kennedy waxed, was “the fulfillment of the American dream.”
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If your dream is for an America where cronies can come in all colors and climb the political ladder with the patronage of Big Labor, indeed, Hilda Solis certainly fits the bill.

Solis’s father, Raul, was a Teamsters Union shop steward from Mexico. Her mother, Juana, was an assembly-line worker from Nicaragua. Born in Los Angeles, Solis served in the state legislature for eight years before winning a congressional seat against a fellow Democrat, 71-year-old, nine-term incumbent Matthew Martinez, in 2000. Martinez angered powerful unions in southern California with his support of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Solis eagerly carried the organized labor banner. Organized labor, in return, showered her with financial affection.

To help ensure her upset defeat of Martinez, the political action committee of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) gave her a maximum $5,000 donation
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—but more important, it supplied her with nearly 300 rank-and-file canvassers and ground troops. “I wouldn’t be here, were it not for my friends in the labor movement,” she gushed at her victory speech. A look at Solis’s campaign coffers underscores that debt of gratitude. Over four terms in Congress, Solis has pocketed more than $900,000 in campaign contributions from unions—including $264,300 from building trade unions, $180,500 from industrial unions, $162,550 from public sector unions, and $153,500 from transportation unions.
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Labor bosses turned cartwheels when the White House tapped her on December 18, 2008, for the Cabinet post. SEIU godfather Andy Stern called it “extraordinary.”
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(See chapter 7 for more on the Obama/SEIU/Stern axis.) Democrats extolled Solis’s knowledge and leadership on work issues. But during her confirmation hearing, Solis dodged questions from Republicans on right-to-work laws that prevent requiring membership in a union as a condition of employment. Solis hemmed and hawed before asserting: “I don’t believe that I am qualified to address that at this time.” Solis also punted on questions about the number one agenda item of her union patrons: the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (or “card check” bill), which would obliterate secret ballot elections in union organizing and increase pressure on workers to organize against their will: “My position as a nominee for President-elect Obama to serve as secretary of labor doesn’t, in my opinion, afford me the ability to provide you with an opinion at this time.”
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Solis acted more like a Supreme Court nominee than a Cabinet appointee, bobbing and weaving as if direct answers would jeopardize a future court case:

“Senator, I would just say to you that that is an item of great interest to me. I think that that is something that I am not able to speak to you [about] at this time but will like to review and then come back to you personally on that matter....

“I would like to explore that more with this committee.... But that’s something that I think I’m not prepared to give you a complete answer on at this time.”
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Republican Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming blasted Solis’s evasions. “What answers? She doesn’t even recognize her own record when giving the answers.”
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Indeed, Solis was a co-sponsor of the very card-check legislation she refused to talk about at her hearing! Moreover, she served as director and treasurer of a union-promoting lobbying group, American Rights at Work, which was pushing her card-check bill. On top of that, Solis failed to disclose those positions to the House on her financial disclosure forms. In effect, she was lobbying herself, as former Federal Election Commissioner and Justice Department official Hans A. von Spakovsky put it.
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Neat trick, huh?

Wait, that’s not all. Solis’s self-lobbying group took in at least “$1 million in contributions from labor unions” and spent “thousands of dollars on television spots described by the group in its report to the FEC as ‘electioneering communications.’”
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Those ads targeted Republican incumbent Senators Norm Coleman, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, and John Sununu. The scheme circumvented vaunted McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms barring so-called soft money donations from unions and corporations alike.

Despite apparent violations of both basic disclosure and campaign finance rules, Solis skated. She signed an affidavit stating that she didn’t control her lobbying group’s funds—even though she was its treasurer and a board member .
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The GOP was ready to roll over. And then, just hours before the nomination vote, the Obama White House sheepishly disclosed that Solis’s husband had just paid 16-year-old tax liens worth about $6,400. According to
USA Today
: “Los Angeles County records showed 15 outstanding state and county tax liens against Sam Sayyad and his auto repair business, totaling $7,630. Two other liens worth $981 were released in 1999 after Sayyad repaid the taxes owed, according to county records.”
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After the requisite eyebrow-furrowing, Solis coasted to victory. Or rather, her special-interest patrons in Big Labor coasted to victory: the union bosses’ dream fulfilled.

TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY RAY LAHOOD: EARMARK MAN

There was much ado about President Obama’s “unprecedented”
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choice of Republican Congressman Ray LaHood to lead the Department of Transportation. (Er, never mind that GOP President George W. Bush tapped Democrat Norm Mineta in the previous administration.) Paeans to “reaching across the aisle” and “working together” resounded among the chattering classes. “Ray’s appointment reflects that bipartisan spirit—a spirit we need to reclaim in this country to make progress for the American people,” Obama said in cheerleading himself and his pick .
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But donkeys and elephants have always come together in the spirit of expanding government, rolling logs, and barreling pork. Seven-term Congressman LaHood may have an “R” by his name, but it’s his political DNA that matters more than the partisan label. LaHood is a card-carrying member of the Chicago Political Machine. And as an Illinois congressman from 1995 to 2009, he reveled in his power as a House appropriator: He chose the assignment on the House Appropriations Committee, he told the
Peoria Journal Star
, because he and his fellow pork-slingers “know that it puts them in a position to know where the money is at, to know the people who are doling the money out and to be in the room when the money is being doled out.”
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LaHood is an especially intimate crony of fellow Illinois king-maker and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Their public displays of affection abound. In a House floor speech last fall, Emanuel hailed his GOP colleague as “someone the framers of the Constitution would have ‘had in their mind’s eye’ when they ‘thought of a member of Congress.... He is an individual who, while firm in his principles, was very flexible about his opinions.’”
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“Flexibility” is easy when you have no fiscal conservative spine.

Emanuel and LaHood teamed up to push the massive expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2007, funded through huge cigarette tax hikes and reaching far beyond the scope of the original plan towards the goal of universal health care.
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They co-hosted a series of bipartisan dinners for members of Congress to forge a consensus on spending your money. LaHood also crusaded for federal funding to pay for a $20 billion O’Hare International Airport expansion at the behest of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. And when the White House sought Republican support for the trillion-dollar stimulus bill, LaHood was the go-to guy.

Not a single House Republican voted for the stimulus, but former Republican Congressman LaHood got the last laugh. He now has $48 billion in stimulus money for the Department of Transportation to play with—including $8 billion for his pet transportation cause, high-speed rail. Next to Joe the Train Rider Biden, LaHood is the loudest Capitol Hill advocate for government-subsidized money loser Amtrak. “The subsidies need to continue,” LaHood protested in response to a 2005 Bush plan by Democrat Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta that called for reducing the feds’ role in Amtrak operations. “These subsidies are the lifeblood of Amtrak continuing the kind of service they have to the college towns and the small communities in Illinois and around the country. I don’t see us really tinkering with that.”
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The stimulus funds for transportation represent what’s been called the “largest wave of federal transportation spending since the Eisenhower administration launched the creation of the interstate highway system.”
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