I wouldn’t care if Glenn Beck made tax mistakes

Just in case he actually runs for office, the Leftist media is already planning one line of attack against Glenn Beck.  They’re thinking that they can nail him on taxes, just as he went after so many Democrats who were found, wittingly or not, to have underpaid their taxes:

No one has been less forgiving than Glenn Beck when it comes to Democrats with tax problems. Not just the well-known ones like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner but also less serious ones such as Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose husband only recently paid off $6,400 in tax liens on his auto repair business, and Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her nomination to be White House chief performance officer, citing a $946.69 tax lien on her Washington home.

Their tax issues are just one indicator of “a culture of corruption among some of the left,” Beck declared just last month in a segment on his hugely popular Fox News television show, in which he branded Geithner, Killefer, Solis and a handful of other Obama nominees “tax cheats,” whom he wouldn’t trust “with my children, let alone my children’s future.”

Mocking the excuses offered by the nominees, Beck sarcastically intoned: “Oh, the tax thing, it was an accident. It was my husband’s fault. I didn’t do it, he did it. I didn’t mean to do it. I was just working hard for the people.”

So what to make, then, of the fact that Beck has had his own minor tax problems over the past few years?

As Beck evolved from a medium-market local radio personality to a one-man media empire with top-rated radio and television shows, best-selling books, a monthly magazine and a traveling one-man comedy tour, his production company, Mercury Radio Arts, has at times struggled to keep up with the heightened tax and filing demands accompanying his success.

The same article goes on to explain, at some length, the nature of Beck’s problems, and to point out that they parallel the problems many on the Left had in trying to comply with their tax obligations:  the tax code is so complicated, it’s hard to get it right.

And it’s that last little point that makes me think that I wouldn’t care, and most people wouldn’t care, if Glenn Beck ran (which I think is a bad idea for other reasons) and the Left tried to smear him with tax issues.  You see, what distinguishes Beck from the Left is that Beck, as a pro-individual, anti-government guy, he isn’t in favor of constantly increasing the tax burden on ordinary Americans.  Likewise, Beck, unlike Charles Rangel, isn’t writing the tax code.  Also, Beck, unlike Tim Geithner, isn’t being put in charge of America’s economy.  So yes, Beck has in common with Leftist politicians the fact that he too can’t figure out what the heck is going on tax-wise, but he parts ways with them in that he is neither a government employee, nor is he a big government maven.  Someone who works for the government, and wants to increase the tax burdens the government places on ordinary citizens, has a much, much higher duty than anyone else to get it right.