This week, the Obama administration faced two withdrawals from potential appointments; former Senator Tom Daschle from his nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and Nancy Killefer from her nomination to be the chief White House performance officer.

Both candidates cited tax related issues having brought about their withdrawals from nomination. This, coupled with the recently confirmed Treasury Secretary’s failure to pay his taxes, has casted doubt over our new President’s ability to correctly judge character.

It is as if tax negligence is a prerequisite to hold office in the Obama administration. How could we even have considered trusting an almost $1 trillion dollar stimulus package to a man who could not even pay his own taxes?

Even if treasury Secretary Geithner’s failure to pay $35,000 in back taxes was accidental – which is doubtful – why should we entrust the largest economy in the world to a man who cannot even handle his own finances? I can only imagine what he will say when he makes a mistake in office. “I didn’t know” is not going to cut it in these difficult economic times.

If any one of us regular citizens failed to pay our taxes, we would not be offered to serve in the Obama administration, rather the IRS would ensure that we would be serving hard time in jail. Perhaps Obama or the Secretary of the Treasury can explain why there is a double standard for ‘ordinary’ citizens and the political elite.

President Obama’s lack of judgment was also shown with the appointment of former Senator Thomas Daschle to be the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Senator Daschle violated the public trust when he did not pay his sizable amount of taxes. As a Senator, it was his job to appropriate funds to run the government, which means levying taxes.

It is hypocritical of him not to contribute to the government spending to which his constituents, themselves, had contributed. It’s amusing that politicians claim to be worried about the large deficit when a former Senators is helping along deficit spending, through legislating government spending and tax fraud.

Although these officials were wrong, what upsets me most is that President Obama would nominate these people in the first place. During his campaign he called for more accountability in Washington, but by the nomination of these men, accountability was disregarded. The new President with all the powers to properly investigate potential candidates picked ones who were tainted. That does not sound like the “change we need” to me.