Obama apologizes for Daschle downfall

Hello and welcome to a UPI White House Weekly.

President Obama admitted this week that he screwed up with regards to the nomination of Tom Daschle. The president nominated the former Senate majority leader to the post of health and human services secretary, but Daschle withdrew as news leaked that he had failed to pay taxes in the past. In interviews this week, Obama said he takes responsibility and will fix the problem. Meanwhile, Daschle apologized for what he called honest mistakes.

Daschle wasn't the only one to back out of serving in the Obama administration because of tax issues. Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination this week over a reported tax problem with household help. Killefer was set to become chief performance officer and help eliminate waste from the federal budget. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also had tax troubles, but was confirmed anyway. Geithner admitted that he failed to pay more than $34 thousand dollars in self-employment taxes. He said it was unintentional.

President Obama is putting a cap on executive pay. This week, he pledged to take the air out of golden parachutes and limit compensation of company executives receiving federal bailout money to $500,000. The restrictions are included under a revised financial compensation plan and will affect large companies that receive a lot of assistance, such as Citigroup. They also mandate that shareholders of banks have a greater say about the salaries paid to company heads.

Kid's health care topped the President's agenda this week. On Wednesday, Obama signed a bill to provide federally funded health care to an estimated 4 million children. The new law is an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, boosting its funding to about $60 billion. Opponents say that it will allow undocumented immigrants to illegally access taxpayer-financed health care and is insufficiently funded.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Obama
• Daschle
• tax
• health
• secretary
• President
• Killefer
• Geithner
• executive pay
• UPI
• Citigroup
• economy children

[OmarThePug]

Looks like all the people B.O. wants to work for him should've voted for Ron Paul instead! (Ron Paul wanted to shut the corrupt IRS down).

[flyboymd82]

When I'm done choking on shit, what should I do with your clothes loser??

Can you type a sentence without the word "shit" in it?? LOL!

[nilbud]

Choke on shit you uneducated yokel.

[flyboymd82]

Hey people look! Ireland got a computor! LOL!

"Fear"??

[nilbud]

Get used to fear shithead.

[flyboymd82]

Get used to apologizing you freaking moron!

[ejbh3160]

I thought the income tax law was against the Constitution and never actually got passed into Law..?

[oilhammer04]

While he is at it, take the air out of pay to politicians, who increase the cost of living in America.