Taxation & Estate Planning

More on Taxes and President, VP Candidates

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

On the McCain/Palin (or is it Palin/McCain?) side, there's some analysis of income tax returns:

Palin: Wall Street Journal article

McCain: Huffington Post article

On the Obama/Biden side, there's this open letter from prominent economists (including my current professor) who criticize Obama's tax plan. (Of course, there's some evidence, here, that lots of economists support Obama.) On Biden, I got nuthin -- are hair plugs deductible?

William Ayers doesn't have anything to do with taxes, but he's in the news a bit too, as McCain tries to connect him with Obama. Can I talk a bit about Chicago and Chicago politics? I'm not an expert on this, and what follows is really just one person's opinion, but the mainstream media often seems to miss the point. [If you are not interested in intensely-opinionated political discussion, you may want to stop reading here.]

To begin with, the question really isn't whether Obama is outside the mainstream for being acquainted with Ayers. Instead, it is (or should be), how did Ayers enter the Chicago mainstream? And the answer is, simply, that he is the son of very wealthy and prominent Chicagoan Thomas Ayers. Does it surprise anyone that setting off bombs + wealth = "no jail time," just as stealing prescription drugs from a charity + wealth = "no jail time" for Cindy McCain? That's how Chicago (and America in general) works.

McCain has tried to attack Chicago, when he says ?I don?t need lessons about telling the truth to the American people? and were I ever to need any improvement in that regard I probably would not seek advice from a Chicago politician." To me, the biggest problem with Chicago politics is that it takes people of dubious competence and makes them our leaders, solely on the basis of their last name:

-Mayor Richard Daley (son of the original Mayor Daley, of course; failed bar exam twice; doesn't realize that Chicago is the City That Works in spite of, not because of, him);

-Attorney General Lisa Madigan (my former colleague; notable solely for being the adopted daughter of Mike Madigan, Illinois Speaker of the House; probably the next Governor or Senator);

-Governor Rod Blagojevich (an embarrassment even to Illinois Democrats, which is really saying something; his greatest accomplishment is his hair; son-in-law of powerful Chicago Alderman Richard Mell); and

-Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.

It's this last individual who raises some serious questions about Obama's judgment. John Stroger Jr., Todd's father, controlled the Cook County Board as president beginning in 1994. How can I put this delicately? John Stroger Jr. was corrupt. In 2006, Stroger was challenged in the primaries by Forest Claypool, a reform-minded guy with a very impressive resume and support from pretty much every major newspaper. Right before the primary election, Stroger had a stroke, which his campaign covered up for a number of months. Sometime after Stroger won the primary election, he was replaced in the general election by his son, Todd.

So, if Chicago politics were to be compared to a horror film (it IS October), we moved from Undead Zombie Stroger to Son of Stroger. I don't know which is scarier, but I do know that:

(a) Obama endorsed Todd Stroger, despite being friends with Claypool; and

(b) Stroger has been an unmitigated disaster, and is universally acknowledged as such -- his Cook County sales tax increase gave Chicago the highest sales tax in the entire country, and the Cook County Board still seems as corrupt as ever.

This article has a bit more detail about Obama's betrayal of Claypool and the citizens of Cook County. If McCain really wanted to hammer Obama on issues that matter (corruption and taxes), he'd do well to focus on Obama and Todd Stroger. Of course, I doubt that McCain can or will do that -- it would require McCain to actually understand all of the above and to convey it to voters without drawing attention to his own problems (the fact that McCain would be nowhere near the presidency without his father and grandfather's clout, and his second wife's money).

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on October 07, 2008 (boomark / email).