Deputy budget director pick withdraws
Tax trouble didn't stop Timothy Geithner from becoming treasury secretary, and apparently won't prevent Tom Daschle from taking the helm at health and human services.
But it appears to have helped doom Nancy Killefer, President Obama's pick for deputy budget director with responsibility for rooting out government waste.
The White House said today that Killefer, a 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., has withdrawn and would explain her reasons for pulling out later today.
The Associated Press reported that she failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help. In 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation taxes, the AP said.
UPDATE: The White House just released the letter from Killefer:
Dear Mr. President,
I recognize that your agenda and the duties facing your Chief Performance Officer are urgent. I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. Unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid. Because of this I must reluctantly ask you to withdraw my name from consideration.
I am deeply honored to have been selected by you and you have my deep appreciation for your confidence in me. You have my heartfelt support and best wishes for success in all your endeavors.
Respectfully yours,
Nancy Killefer
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Change we can believe in, huh? You people just changed one set of crooks w/ another. Nice job.
Change we can believe in.
One of two things here, either she had the common sense and decency to withdraw or she has more issues that would have come out with further investigation. I hope it is the former but the odds say the latter.
Another Fraud.
weird how this story is buried and not a major headline! what are the chances
Does anyone pay taxes any more or is it just us little guys?
Meet the new boss - same as the old boss. So much for "Transparency" and "Change".....
That "household help" gets them every time.
You people? Are you an immigrant? The last time I checked, this man was elected by the American people.
As for change, you're right, this is change. Bush would not have allowed his guys to withdraw over a piddly issue like non-payment of taxes. It's about time we had some accountability.
What a circus this Obama administration is - how shameful for the people stupid enough to vote for this gangster.
Is that change working out the way you had hoped?
You people? Are you an immigrant? The last time I checked, this man was elected by the American people.
As for change, you're right, this is change. Bush would not have allowed his guys to withdraw over a piddly issue like non-payment of taxes. It's about time we had some accountability.
At least she did the honorable thing and stepped down - and this was only for a few hundred bucks!
We have a Treasury Secretary (the guy in charge of overseeing the IRS!) that owes 40,000+ and a HHS nominee who owes more than 100,000!
Change??? This is pathetic.
Let he without tax sins, cast the first stone.
You can bet that most wealthy people have welshed on their full tax obligations. That's why it's so scandalous that there are so few audits even though the auditors would more than pay for themselves in the increase in revenues. I don't understand why Daschle didn't pay a lot more in fines - $11,000 is a drop in the bucket. Should have been at least $100k in fines. Obama is proving to be such a joke.
Transparency means finding out who didn't pay their taxes.
Now I wonder if change means that the IRS will finally do something about most of this....doubt it.
This Obama administration has become a joke in record time.
No wonder the Dems don't mind increasing taxes...they short change their own payments and rely on others to pay instead.
Ahh! The Party of the Little People and Working Man!
At least Obama is not responsible for the deaths of over 4000 Americans, as well
as God knows how many Iraqis, the authorization of torture, including waterboarding, etc. etc. etc.
What ever happened to Bush's female pick for the Supreme Court. She lasted less than a weekend. Even Howie (loud mouth ) Carr derided this intelligent move by the IDIOT
At least Obama is not responsible for the deaths of over 4000 Americans, as well
as God knows how many Iraqis, the authorization of torture, including waterboarding, etc. etc. etc.
What ever happened to Bush's female pick for the Supreme Court. She lasted less than a weekend. Even Howie (loud mouth ) Carr derided this intelligent move by the IDIOT
PubliusK, before you pull your partisan head out of your ass, you've got no business saying Bush wouldn't allow a nominee to withdraw over something like this.
Want to know why? None of his nominees were accused of tax evasion.......
dave, Bush's nominees were withdrawn for much nobler issues than $900 in taxes, I agree. It's a shame all these damn liberals are being so partisan isn't it?
There's nothing like a judge nominee who ruled in 100 cases where he held stock in the companies before him, or a Deputy General nominee who helped draft the doc allowing waterboarding, or nominating the white house's own head council to the supreme court with no experience, or a DoE seat to an exec who managed a company that allowed a spill '30 times larger than the Valdez' after repeated warnings about the site.
Obama is so much worse at this than any Republican would ever be. Bush nominated people with egregious judgement mistakes relating to the very job they were to perform, where Obama has the audacity to nominate qualified people with some personal tax issues. Who's the hack pol here?
The Dems have a love---hate relationship with Taxes.
They love to administer them but hate to pay them.
Hey Dave,
Learn your facts: Linda Chavez withdrew in January 2001 as President George W. Bush's nominee to be labor secretary after it was disclosed that she gave a Guatemalan woman free room and board in her home and $1,500 during a two-year period in the early 1990s even though Chavez knew she was an illegal immigrant. Bernard Kerik was Bush's nominee to be Homeland Security Director, but he also withdrew for failing to pay payroll taxes on household help. And don't even get me started on Judge Roberts, appointed by Bush to the Supreme Court; they wouldn't even release his records...