Centerfield

The man or woman who could conduct our foreign policy with that kind of flair would be elected by acclamation. Even by those of us who have never played soccer, nor watched it, and know nothing about it.

I've in the final simmering phase (meat tenderifaction) of some chili.

So far it's not bad, but not as good as Third Base's.

McCain didn't pay CA property taxes for 4 years?!?!?!?!

Gee I guess taxes are for us "little" people.

Arrogant MF.

Marcus,
To be precise, the trust fund which administers that particular property gave the county government the wrong address to send the tax bill to. And the county government, for 4 years, failed to do anything when the post office returned the bill as undeliverable. So while the trust fund was also asleep at the switch for not noticing that they hadn't gotten the tax bill, the county tax office was too.

Now those of us who have simple enough financial affairs that we can do all our own taxes would probably notice a missing tax bill. But if your affairs are sufficiently complex that you hire someone to sort thru them, you probably have to assume that they are doing the work that you pay they for. By the time you have a trust administrator, and probably a second outfit preparing its taxes, you are two removes from the McCains. Not to mention that, if I recall correctly, the McCains keep a lot of their financial affairs separated, so the Senator was at least 3 removes away.

So really, it's a bit much to leap from this to "McCain believes that taxes are only for little people." Unless you cna show some evidence, any evidence, that he was aware of the problem -- let alone that he knew and approved of doing nothing.

Now if you want to say that the tax laws should be simplified so that anybody can manage to do their own taxes and have a reasonable chance to get it right, that's fine. And you can fault the Senator for not at least introducing legislation to simplify them. But at the moment, it's pretty much impossible to do your taxes and get it right if you have anything more than a salary and maybe interest on a savings account. Which is to say, every year the majority of the population fails to do it right.

Nice try....

To your last point first of all, this level of taxation - pay property taxes therefore get tax deduction - is one of the most basic and simplest parts of the tax code. It's like paying sales tax on a bottle of Mountain Dew. So please, don't insult our intelligence here.

Let's see now.... you sign off on your Federal income tax, check those deductions on that Schedule A (get the idea that I do my own taxes?), yesssss, oh those wonderful tax deductions... but lo' where is yonder deduction for our condo in La Jolla? Alas! Alck! Allay!!!!1 Why isn't it here???? Why am I stuck paying MORE taxes than I should?

Sorry but your excuse falls apart here. There were other ways to check things out, including the aforementioned FEDERAL INCOME TAXES. Plus, if you are a politician who constantly runs for president who's the moron that's supposed to vet your finances to make sure you're squeaky clean? Furthermore, how does his handling of this - by NOT mentioning it - indicate the level of responsibility he takes for his actions? BTW, like every other homeowner in California we like to make sure we do pay our taxes, because some of us believe in that trite old chestnmut that paying taxes pays for government which is necessary to the running of our democracy.

I can see it now... McCain gets a PDB regarding an Al Queda threat, seems that they want to create a spectacular disaster in the US...Like your predecessor you slough it off and think about that weekend of golf coming up.

This bespeaks of hiring the incompetent and being out of touch. Since we've already been stuck with that for almost 8 years I will venture to say that I don't want to go there again. McCain is such an out of touch *** anyway by voting against numerous bills to help veterans and being King Chicken for not voting on the last one. Did you catch the Shrub last night giving McCain credit for the new GI Bill? What a damn lie, McCain was against it.

I'll also note how this story is an indication of how the media is stacked against Obama because you can be sure that if this was a condo owned by Obama, Faux News and the rest of the corporate media would be on it like flies on the poo poo platter. But where is it? on MSNBC and buried in the back of a few newspapers.

Like I said, nice try. McCain is irresponsible and out of touch. This is a perfect example of that.

Close. But if the property is owned by a trust like this, it files separately. McCain may get a statement of any net procedes (probably none, unless there is other stuff in the trust), but not the details.

I agree that it reflects hiring low competence, and that could be an issue. But what it doesn't reflect is deliberately failing to pay taxes, which was your original implication.

Under California law you are required to pay taxes whether you are notified or not. Period.
Whether I don't remember or I'm don't get a notification I still have that responsibility.
McCain probably had at leasr 3 tax returns to sign, to vet and to ask questions about. Fed, AZ and CA.
Obviously they have no problem paying the condo fees.

The funny thing is that if it wasn't for the Newsweek article we'd have that condo on a tax sale next year.