Tax troubles

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is the latest Democratic Party figure -- and the second Obama administration Cabinet nominee -- to be humiliated as a tax cheat and delinquent. On Monday, Mr. Daschle humbly apologized to the Senate committee that will, in all likelihood, still confirm him as Health and Human Services secretary.

Common taxpayers are justifiably furious that Mr. Daschle, a champion of the left's tax-anything-that-moves orthodoxy, improperly inflated deductions for charitable donations and failed to report as income $250,000 worth of car services provided over three years by an old pal and business associate.

This whopper followed the disclosure that Timothy Geithner, recently sworn in as treasury secretary, didn't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for four years while employed by the International Monetary Fund. What made Mr. Geithner's offense more serious was the fact that his mistake was caught long before he was nominated to oversee the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service and the rest of the treasury. He was notified of the liability after a 2006 IRS audit but still took two years to pay his bill.

And let's not forget the magnificent hypocrisy of Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Last year, a review of Rep. Rangel's returns found enough errors and omissions in his investment and real estate income to land a common citizen in jail.

These blunders barely scratch the surface of the Democratic Party's do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do model of governance. But aggrieved taxpayers, put-off partisans and cranky conservatives need to go much further than merely calling for their political pound of flesh from Mr. Daschle, Mr. Geithner and Rep. Rangel.

Mea culpas won't make this country's Byzantine tax code any easier to decipher. For goodness sake, a former Senate majority leader, a renowned government-finance expert and the man most responsible for crafting the current IRS code can't even come close to calculating their correct tax bill. How many more embarrassing inquiries does Congress need to see before it takes up the cause of tax simplification?

Whether you're a multimillionaire or a hotel maid, the process of paying your federal taxes shouldn't take more than half an hour or more than a single sheet of paper. Everyone -- especially members of Congress -- should be able to verify their return with the same certainty one would experience in correcting a first-grader's math homework.

Politicians have more than enough to be sorry for. Apologies for tax mistakes should become a thing of the past.