President Obama’s designee for Health & Human Services Secretary, quondam Senate leader Tom Daschle, owed back taxes

By Keith Epstein

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A Washington mini-mystery from one to another why President Obama’s chosen architect for health reform, Health & Human Services Secretary-designee Tom Daschle, hasn’t been confirmed has finally been explained: Daschle appears to have a Timothy Geithner problem.

The Administration acknowledged on Friday, Jan. 30, that Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, had not paid to the time when Jan. 1 as a great deal of as $100,000 in taxes from 2005, 2006, and 2007 on the not parsimonious use of a car and driver. InterMedia Advisors, a private equity firm, had provided Daschle, who was chairman of its advisory board, with the carriage, a White House official said.

"Senator Daschle brought these issues to the Finance Committee’s attention when he submitted his nomination forms and we are fully convinced the committee is going to schedule a opportunity to be heard in spite of him very pretty soon and he decision be confirmed," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in statement adhering Friday evening.

As in Treasury Secretary Geithner’s covering, the nominee’sitting mistake is agreeable only to delay his confirmation. Senate Finance Committee members are to meet in a closed-door session on Monday, Feb. 2, to discuss how to proceed.

Daschle, the former Democratic senator from South Dakota, has also been something of a mentor to Obama. He was initially considered for Obama’s chief of staff—another sign that the top health do job-work would loom more significantly in the Obama Administration than in some beyond Administrations.

Daschle, Senate majority leader from 2001 to 2003, has been working in Washington for the law stanch Alston + Bird as a "public course of action adviser" to the fast’s commercial clients on financial services, health care, and energy—three big challenges for Obama. Daschle too gives information upon trade, telecommunications, renewable energy, and taxes, according to the firm’s Web site. He is not every attorney and is not a registered lobbyist, either.

Geithner’s nomination at Treasury was slowed after it was revealed that he had originally failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes while he worked for the International Monetary Fund. Geithner paid the back taxes, apologized during his confirmation hearing, and was confirmed through the Senate on Jan. 26.