Another Fine Mess

Another Obama nominee has run into tax problems, this time by proxy. The husband of Hilda Solis, the nominee for Labor Secretary, owns an auto repair business in California. It has now come to light that this business had a number of outstanding state and county tax liens against it. The oldest liens were sixteen years old, and the total value of the liens was $7630. According to news reports, Sam Sayyad, Ms. Solis’ husband, was not even aware of the outstanding liens until asked about them.

There are two ways you can look at this story. One, you can spin this into a partisan attack on the administration. “Look at these guys: first Geithner, then Daschle, then Killefer, and now Solis. These guys are all crooks and tax cheats.”

This dog won’t hunt. Daschle and Killefer have withdrawn. This flap about Solis is much ado about nothing. $7630? Please, get serious. If her husband didn’t get something so penny ante resolved before this, it was because he really didn’t know about the tax liens.

I think a more interesting take on the situation was the point I brought up in my last post. Governmental regulation can be so pervasive, and yet so obscure, that even people who intend to be in compliance may not know they are in violation of one regulation or another.

No, Sam Sayyad is not a crook. He is just an honest businessman trying to run his company and make a little money doing it. But if the people on the pro-regulatory side of the aisle can’t keep even with the current level of regulation and taxes, surely that has to be an argument against adding to the burden.