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Now we have nothing against people buying expensive mansions. Some of my best friends have million-dollar-plus homes. In a debate on Fox News the other night, former indicted Congressman Tony Coelho defended Daschle by noting that Arnold Schwarznegger has a multimillion-dollar home and he's running for office, so why shouldn't the Daschles? There's a fundamental difference here. Arnold makes things (hit movies) that people want and he has gotten rich doing so. God bless him. Tom Daschle has been living on a government salary for almost all of his working life (how much are we paying these people?) and his wife Linda gets her money from lobbying Congress. It's no stretch to say that she cashes in on her husband's lofty status. Daschle has worked tirelessly to pull the ads off the airwaves. His protests have been almost comical. His first complaint was that the ads are misleading because he really does favor lower taxes. Hmmm, that's news to anyone who even casually follows politics in Washington. For at least the past ten years, Daschle has voted against anything that even has the whiff of a tax cut. He was the deciding vote in the Senate for Bill Clinton's mega-tax hike. Next we heard from
the '60s rock group Crosby, Stills, and Nash, which accused us of copyright
violation, by parodying their music, and demanded that we cease and desist
from running these ads. The law is very clear that this kind of usage
is no copyright violation. And doesn't it seem like just yesterday that
liberals were fanatics on First Amendment rights. Now they do everything
in their power to suppress political speech — if it comes from the
right side of the political spectrum. . Could Daschle be legally prohibited from running for reelection because he no longer lives in South Dakota? The Daschle campaign team has swiftly transitioned into crisis-management mode. The press release the campaign released explains away the predicament this way: "Linda Daschle works in DC and pays income taxes in DC. That makes Linda Daschle eligible for the homestead exemption on behalf of the Daschles." Okay, let me get this straight. Linda lives in D.C. and Tom lives in South Dakota. Sounds like somebody needs couples therapy! The press release further explains that "there is no question that Tom Daschle is a South Dakota resident. He has a South Dakota driver's license. He has South Dakota plates on his car." And then the trump card: "He pays South Dakota taxes." The only thing Daschle doesn't do it seems, is actually reside in South Dakota. Who would ever thought by the way, that the leader of the Democratic party would be such a fanatic about tax avoidance? South Dakota has no income tax and D.C. is a tax hell. This tax-happy senator saves thousands of dollars every year on his income taxes by filing as a South Dakotan. And apparently Linda is no slouch in this tax-minimization game either. In fact this whole mini-scandal that has snagged the Daschle's by the pants legs, was all caused by an attempt by the Daschles to save a few measly thousand dollars on their D.C. property taxes. The irony here is so thick you can taste it. Daschle fights like a pit bull every year to prevent tax cuts for working-class folks, like South Dakota farmers, who could save a few thousand dollars on their taxes thanks to the Bush tax cut. But there's no limit to the steps he will take to avoid paying taxes himself. Daschle was telling the truth when he claimed he was for tax relief: Tax relief for the Daschle family, that is. I guess, fundamentally the Daschles agrees with Leona Helmsley: Taxes are for the little people to pay. — Stephen Moore is president of the Club for Growth. |
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erhaps you've heard about the mounting scandal over Tom Daschle's new
$2 million home on ritzy Foxhall Lane in Washington, D.C. — which
is a long way from Aberdeen, South Dakota. The group I head, the Club
for Growth, recently exposed this audacious purchase in TV ads that are
now running in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We note that Daschle, the Senate
Democratic Minority Leader, who voted against the Bush tax cuts, evidently
doesn't need tax relief judging from the size of the home he can afford,
but working people back in $70,000 homes in South Dakota strongly favor
tax reduction. The background jingle is a parody from the Crosby, Stills
and Nash song: "Our House." We changed the wording to: "Tom's
house, it's a very, very, very big house."
