Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is the latest Obama Cabinet nominee to have to pay back taxes. In her case, the errors appear relatively minor and unintentional, involving mortgage interest expenses on a home she sold and some missing documentation. The errors shouldn’t interfere with her confirmation — though they have given late-night comics and talk radio hosts some new material.
April Fools’ Day turned out to be former Alaska Sen. Ten Stevens’ lucky day. The Justice Department has dismissed the indictment against him and voided his conviction for filing false statements on his U.S. Senate financial-disclosure forms. Attorney General Eric Holder reportedly decided that the prosecution and investigation were too tainted to stand up on appeal, in part because prosecutors withheld evidence from Stevens’ defense team. “It is unfortunate that an election was affected by proceedings now recognized as unfair,” said Stevens, who lost the Senate seat he’d held since 1968 after his conviction. But does Holder’s decision mean Stevens is guiltless?
The good news for President Obama is that the number of Americans who think the country is headed on the right track has tripled since he was elected, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The not-as-good news is that the rate is only 42 percent, and doubts are rising about his administration’s economic recovery plans — though the public still overwhelmingly blames the economy’s problems on excesses of the financial industry and not on Obama.
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama has seen a surge in popular support. Despite all the catty comments about her clothes and bare arms, the first lady’s favorability ratings are at 76 percent, up 28 points since summer.
President Obama’s announcement Monday of a new level of government involvement in the management of corporate America “amounted to an inversion of the relationship that had helped define the rise of American manufacturing might in the 20th century,” David E. Sanger wrote in the New York Times. Obama’s message now seems to be that “what is good for America will have to be good enough for General Motors.”
Sanger noted that Obama’s pledge that the government would back up car warranties may have been a necessary step. “But,” he wrote, “it means that the government now is not only the ultimate guarantor of savings accounts and insurance policies — it will also cover that blown transmission.”
Former Kansas congressman and Senate hopeful Jim Slattery took a lot of abuse from incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts last year for being a “Washington lobbyist.” But Slattery just rejoined his former D.C. law firm, Wiley Rein, to lobby on issues related to health care, energy and the financial crisis, according to Legal Times’ blog. “It’s a very interesting time to be working in Washington in the public policy arena,” Slattery said. “The federal government is dealing with huge problems, the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years.”
