Smooth Transition: another one bites the dust

no, not that one.

there is another.

[rquoter]Tax issues prompt Obama nominee to withdraw

Story Highlights
Nancy Killefer was nominated to be chief performance officer
Reason for the withdrawal was unspecified tax issues

The job of chief performance officer is to clean up the federal budget
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination Tuesday to become the Obama administration's chief performance officer, citing unspecified problems with District of Columbia unemployment tax.

The post is a new one, set up to help the incoming administration "scrub" waste from the federal budget. But in a letter to President Barack Obama, Killefer said her tax issue "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," she wrote.

Killefer was nominated to be deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, and her duties as chief performance officer were added on. The OMB portion required her to be confirmed by the Senate.

Killefer is the third Obama nominee to face tax troubles, following questions about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary.

Geithner, whose office oversees the Internal Revenue Service, was confirmed after admitting that he had failed to pay in timely fashion more than $34,000 in self-employment taxes while he worked at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2004. The issue was caught during a 2006 audit, and Geithner told the Senate that the debt was incurred unintentionally.

And Daschle, who is still awaiting confirmation, has acknowledged that he failed to pay taxes on a car and driver provided by a friend and on $80,000 in consulting fees after he left the Senate.

"My failure to recognize that the use of a car was income and not a gift from a good friend was a mistake," Daschle said after a closed-door meeting with senators Monday evening. "When I realized the mistake, I notified officials and I paid the tax in full."

Killefer, a senior director at the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, was nominated last month as Obama pledged to cut unnecessary spending and bring "a new sense of responsibility to Washington." Officials said her position would restore fiscal order and reform government.

"We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways of getting the job done," Obama said in announcing her nomination.

The Congressional Budget Office announced last month that the deficit for the current budget year will be $1.2 trillion. Obama said at the time the government would have to "make tough choices" in the budget "to address both the deficit of dollars and the deficit of trust."

Killefer served as assistant secretary for management and chief financial officer of the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration.[/rquoter]

 

How many of these actually paid all their taxes before they were nominated?