That could be the alternate title of Celia Cohen’s latest soft shoe — this time around Senator Colin Bonini’s past tax issues with the IRS. His tax issues resulted in a lien on his house for a short time. Now, Bonini’s story looks plenty incomplete here and we could spend alot of time taking a look at some details that don’t entirely add up, but I want to get to another point.
That point being the complete silence by the local winguts who had a great deal to say about Timothy Geithner’s and others’ pretty small tax problems when they were being vetted for various positions. Let’s refresh our memories at Delaware Politics. In that post, Obama nominees with tax issues were called “tax cheats” and called upon the Senate Finance Committee to reject any nominees who had any record as a “tax violator”. Charlie Copeland dramatically places the back of his hand over his forehead to manage the case of the vapors that Tim Geithner’s tax problems (cleared up, I should say) was causing him.
So when do they (and these blogs) call Bonini a “tax cheat” or proclaim that Bonini “can’t figure out his taxes”? Do you think that these repubs who were so clear that being a tax violator automatically made you unsuitable for office are preparing a case to remind people that a man who can’t do his own taxes isn’t fit to run the Treasury of the State of Delaware?
Yes, I crack myself up too. But while these local repubs furiously scribble on their hands looking for today’s lame excuses for their own hypocrisy, let’s think of Bonini’s tax issues in a larger frame.
Bonini was also the purveyor of last year’s clusterf*ck of a Republican “budget response” to the looming deficit. A response that was short of properly sourced information; short on concrete actions that would actually and immediately reduce the deficit; and short on real ideas for any long-term budget reductions. basically, it was a recycle of the usual local hobby horses against the prevailing wage; early retirements to reduce the size of government (which doesn’t do anything about the job that just got vacated); and a proposal for the Californication of Delaware budgets. No budget was actually included, no budget line items were analyzed, no numbers were made to make sense.
I’ve long made the point about the basic innumeracy of the GOP. Their philosophy towards numbers seems to be that as long as there is an ideological proof, the numbers proof can go fuck itself. With a caveat that applies to making sure that their friends get all the taxpayer money they can eat — those numbers they keep with precision.
But what you can take to the bank is that someone who can’t follow the numbers is certainly no someone who can even identify wasteful spending, much less do something about it. Someone with no grasp of how data gets managed and published is in no position to provide any certifications that the state is actually stating its financial position truthfully. And what does that have to do with Bonini’s taxes? It seems to me that evaluating Bonini’s fitness for the job based on his “tax violator” status should be done in accordance with the same standards they used for Tim Geithner, et al — asking for him to stand down from running for this post.