Every year when I prepare my income tax return, I check it once, twice, three times, and sometimes even four, to make sure I didn’t make an arithmetic mistake or leave something off the form that should have been there. And every year I hold my breath (not literally) until the return comes back and I get my refund, afraid that the IRS will find a mistake. Maybe I am just too cautious, I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to tangle with the IRS over my tax bill. I wish some other people would exercise that kind of caution, especially congressmen and new members of the president’s cabinet.

I was impressed with President Obama’s confession on NBC Nightly News Tuesday night when he said, “I made a mistake, I screwed up.” He was talking about the failure of his vetting process that led him to pick Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle for his Cabinet when both of them had failed to pay back taxes, or report income that would have been taxed. I was feeling good that the president was taking the heat for making the wrong choices, quite a turnabout from former President George Bush’s firm denials that he ever made a mistake. Then Obama said something that didn’t set well with me. He said he didn’t think Daschle intentionally did anything wrong by not reporting all the income and benefits he had received.

That is where Obama and I part ways. I don’t believe for a minute that either one of those two men didn’t know what they were doing. Sure, they are contrite and have expressed regret for having made “mistakes.” What they regret is that they got caught. These men both have high-priced CPAs doing their tax returns and if they allowed those kinds of mistakes to slip through, then they should be publicly chastised as well. 

I do applaud our new president for taking the heat for nominating them, especially Daschle, and for reconsidering some of the projects in his economic stimulus package in the face of strong opposition. We can’t afford more of the same kind of slipshod legislation that was allowed to slip through in the Bush stimulus. I don’t think we have heard the last of the mistakes that the Bush people made with their version of the stimulus bill. All hands need to be on board with this one and it needs to be above suspicion. If the American public doesn’t have faith in it, it won’t work. Perception is a big part of reality and if we think that the package is worthwhile we will support it, it will succeed. If not, forget it. The perception of getting something for nothing has existed for too long in this country. Now it is time to start demanding value from our legislators, both locally and nationally.

That being said, I wonder what got under the president’s skin in his speech Thursday. He almost sounded shrill in his defense of the stimulus plan. Granted, he has extended a hand across the aisle to the Republicans, but he seemed downright insulted that the Republicans have questioned a few items in the stimulus plan. What happened to the leader who so eloquently appealed to Muslims for a better understanding of America’s policies? He could use a little more of that kind of diplomacy in dealing with the opposition in Congress. Everyone deserves to be heard and their opinions respected. That is the message he sent to the Muslim world; that is the message he should be sending to the Republicans as well. It is an old political tactic to load up a spending bill with a few extras and then be willing to jettison then in the face of opposition. There is enough pork here for the president and the Democrats to afford to do that this time. Let’ get it done.

In my mind, there should be some clear distinctions made in the bill on what is geared for immediate stimulus (very little from what I have read) and needed long-range projects. There is a need to shore up the credit markets so more loans can be made and we need to provide incentives for creating more jobs, for both the private and public sectors. Practically every company in America is laying off workers and that is causing ripple effects throughout the economy. The No. 1 priority of the bill should be to encourage the creation of jobs.

Let’s look at how many people my recent layoff has affected:

• I had to fire my lawn maintenance company.
• My wife quit having manicures on a regular basis.
• We stopped eating out twice a week.
• Golf is now an occasional expense (maybe monthly, as opposed to weekly.)
• We cut our cable, telephone and car insurance bills.
• A big summer vacation is probably out of the question this year.
• We quit having out house cleaned twice a month. 

And that is just one person. Multiply that by some 650,000 jobs over the past year and we are talking serious economic impact.

Not that any of these cutbacks have any serious consequences to my wife and I. We are fortunate in that neither of us have any bad health problems. Also, we have been very conservative with our spending and diligent in saving over the past 15, 20 years.

The stimulus package needs to be more thoroughly vetted than Obama’s Cabinet nominees. Make sure it does what the country needs it to do. That’s all I am saying.