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Mayor Marion Barry always offered comic relief for Washington, D.C.  Now a city council member, the 72-year-old isn't in the best of health and these days engages in fewer public antics to entertain the rest of us.  But he truly has proved to be fit for the Obama Cabinet, owing more money to the IRS than all of Obama's nominees, approved and withdrawn, combined.  Reports the Washington Post:

D.C. Council member Marion Barry owes the federal government more than $277,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties and has failed in six recent months to make scheduled payments on taxes owed the D.C. government, according to federal authorities.

Federal authorities have said that Barry (D-Ward 8) failed to pay the bulk of his taxes on more than $500,000 earned from 1999 through 2004. But they had not disclosed the amount until a court filing yesterday.

Barry, a former four-term mayor and a D.C. elected official for much of the past four decades, also owes the D.C. government back taxes, but prosecutors did not specify the amount.

What Barry owes the federal government is equal to more than half his income in that six-year period, is double his salary as a council member and is more than the tax liabilities that have plagued some nominees and would-be nominees of the Obama administration.

Former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), for example, withdrew as the nominee for secretary of health and human services after it was revealed that he had $146,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson has scheduled a hearing for April 2 on whether to revoke Barry's probation for tax offenses because he did not file his federal or D.C. returns for 2007 in a timely manner.

Barry obviously is yet another "tax and spend" politician who exhibits more than a little trouble paying his "fair share" of the tax bill.