Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill Failed To Pay $200,000 In Taxes On Plane

Oops, she...um forgot or something like that. Six figures in back taxes, we all can imagine how that can happen:

Sen. Claire McCaskill said Monday that she owes nearly $300,000 for four years' worth of back taxes on a private airplane that has become a political headache.


McCaskill said she'd pay the bill immediately and has told her husband to "sell the damn plane."


"I will never set foot on the plane again," McCaskill said.


McCaskill, a first-term Missouri Democrat, narrowly defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Jim Talent in 2006, and she faced an already uphill re-election fight next year. Democrats control 53 seats in the Senate, and with a slew of retirements, McCaskill's problems cast yet more uncertainty on the party's efforts to retain its thin majority.


The airplane foul-up has handed Republicans a tailor-made issue to attack the image that McCaskill has so carefully built as an opponent of government excess and secrecy.


McCaskill has already had to face questions about why she used the plane for a political trip that her office mistakenly billed to the taxpayers. Using public funds for political travel is prohibited by Senate rules.


"This is the third time in less than two weeks that she's had to change her story about her private plane, and she only admitted any of her wrongdoing once she got caught by the media," Rob Jesmer, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement.