Stu Bykofsky: If the rules apply to Betty, why not to politicians?
ONCE A MONTH, Betty admits, she goes "on a tear." This month her heart rate's rising over the difference between how the IRS treats Big Shot tax cheats and how they treated her husband many years ago.
ONCE A MONTH, Betty admits, she goes "on a tear."
This month her heart rate's rising over the difference between how the IRS treats Big Shot tax cheats and how they treated her husband many years ago.
You know the current rogues' gallery: Health and Human Services Secretary-nominee Tom (I Have to Report My Ride?) Daschle, Treasury Secretary Timothy (I Have to Pay Taxes Even When I Work for the International Monetary Fund?) Geithner, Labor Secretary-nominee Hilda (I Have to Pay Taxes on Those Who Labor for Me?) Solis, Chief Performance Officer Nancy (I Have to Pay Tax Liens on My Home?) Killefer, plus any I haven't heard of yet.
Betty is Elizabeth McDonald, a 67-year-old Frankford widow whose late husband, Martin, an insurance salesman for John Hancock, made "an honest mistake" on his taxes. He was collared in his office and dragged downtown by IRS agents in the early '60s for a tax debt of less than $500. They confiscated his paycheck and wouldn't release him until he paid in full.
In addition to the humiliation of being dragged away in front of co-workers, Martin suffered the embarrassment of calling his boss to ask to borrow money so that he could be turned loose.
Betty fumes: Did anything approaching that happen to Geithner? "I wonder if the IRS came and confiscated his pay?" she asks.
We're sitting in the dining room of her company-clean, accountant-tidy, four-bedroom single home in which she raised her son and four daughters, playing by the rules. They applied to her; why don't they apply to politicians? she asks.
Yes, she knows that two of the four above-named withdrew their nominations, and Solis is in limbo. We agree that it would have been better PR and better morality for President Obama to have acted swiftly. We kind of choke on the idea that Geithner, arguably the most blatant cheat, is now Secretary of the Treasury. Was Willie Nelson not available? Maybe they're holding him to head the Food and Drug Administration.
Betty half-thinks that Geithner ought to be in jail.
Yes, Betty is a conservative, but, she says, she never votes the party line - she voted for Michael Nutter - and knows that the GOP, too, is lousy with cheats and frauds.
If the IRS did a deep audit on the 535 Honorables who comprise the Senate and House, I ask her, what percentage would come up with tax "problems"- over or under 30 percent?
She thinks that 80 percent, at least, "are guilty of something."
My guess is 50 percent.
When Daschle's stuff hit the wall, I started hearing his supporters drone on about his decades of public service, and how well-liked he is in Washington. That's when my antennae started vibrating.
Somebody found an old campaign commercial that Daschle used when running for Congress. Ironically, it focused on an old, oil-burning car that he owned and drove himself. Most of his tax debt came off a car and driver provided for him by a fat-cat friend. Democrat Daschle is a millionaire.
Is the problem that the tax laws are so incredibly complicated that any poor schlub - Daschle, Geithner, Solis, Killefer - can make an "honest" mistake, as Martin McDonald did?
If so, why didn't these geniuses hire an accountant?
Or is the problem that these "public servants" are so out of touch that they think they're immune from the law?
"I feel that they look at themselves almost like demigods and that they're above the normal citizenry," says Betty.
When "normal citizens" like Betty are bitter about our "leaders," that's poison for America.
Oh! That question I asked about the percentage of Congress who are presumed tax cheats?
Over or under 30 percent. What do you think?
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: