We are rarely amused these days but dear lord in heaven we are most amused by the whole Romney tax returns brou-ha-ha. Harry Reid (majority leader in the Senate and until recently the second most likely to cave Democrat in Washington after Obama) told some reporters and then said on the floor of the Senate that he had been told by a Bain Capital investor that Romney hadn’t paid any taxes during the years covered by the tax returns that Mitt refuses to release.
The Romney campaign – which does not resemble a campaign so much as ad hoc collection of suck-ups and hangers on with anger issues – trotted Mitt out to say something to the effect of “so’s your old man” to Mr. Reid and challenged him to put up or shut up. Many folks are puzzled by this as, Reid does not have access to the documents that would end this all – Romney does. More than one blogger has pointed out that Mitt has essentially challenged Reid to release Mitt’s tax returns.
My head, she explodes, goes the internet meme.
While I am aware that Romney is challenging Reid to name who said that, what is the only thing that will end all this is to release the returns. That Romney is not releasing the returns would argue that there is something there he doesn’t want the American people to see – (I’ve heard it banded as a matter of principle with him but he cheerfully gave McCain copies of his last ten years in 2008 when he was being considered for the vp spot – one of the things that makes me uneasy about a Romney presidency is that he’s such a utter spineless ass-kisser- so he’s willing to share with McCain but not the common rabble).
One can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on in Romney’s mind – and to wonder what the hell could be so bad that he’s more than willing to take this hammering he’s getting over the tax returns (and it seems to be doing damage). The professor is amazed at this.
Romney has been running for president since year one and a half – it has been traditional for presidential candidates to release their tax returns for some years in the past (the exact number is flexible – Mitt’s father released 12 years something that embarrasses Mitt whenever it is mentioned). Any common variety fool with the brains god gave a rabbit would know at some point during one’s quest for the office of president, folks would want to see the tax returns. It will be expected that the tax returns would be released and not release them would create a…well what we are seeing a damaging storm of gibberish that has driven whatever momentum Mitt’s campaign right into the ditch - his momentum not helped by his comedy of unforced errors in England, Israel and Poland but this adds to it. So one would assume that he would direct the folks doing his taxes to keep one eye on how something like not paying anything in taxes based on someone questionable paper losses would look in the light of day.
But this is not the first time Romney’s have some problems with releasing Tax forms – when he was running for gov. of Massachusetts he said time and time again that his returns for whatever the legal residency was in the Commonwealth listed MA as his primary residence. He said this more than once. And said this while cameras were rolling. Then at just about the last moment he a) released the returns and announced that he had actually been declaring Utah as primary residence for tax purposes and then said he was retroactively changing his official residence to Massachusetts (and one assumes paying more taxes) so there is some history of Mitt playing fast and loose with the truth with relation to his tax returns.
He has angrily insisted he paid taxes (but not as folks with sharp ears and nasty instincts pointed out “income taxes”) and that only a fool wouldn’t take advantage of every break he could with regard to taxes. This may be so but most of us – including the professor – simply don’t have access to the kind of tax dodges someone in his income bracket can manage.
And what little we know suggests that there is real dynamite in the returns – he got badly pinged about his canary island and Swiss bank accounts and there is that troubling IRA – which depending on the report is worth 20 to 100 million dollars.
Now reading about tax accounting makes the professor yean for an early nap but if my understanding is correct, the maximum amount that Romney could have put into the fund a year was $30,000. (IRA’s were not created for the well to do , it’s a rather pathetic sop to the middle class to somehow make up for the pension money they will never see as it was drunk like your milkshake by folks like Mitt’s Bain Capital) I have yet to see one expert anywhere that has been able to figure out just how the IRA ended up being worth 20 million never mind 100 million dollars without some really really close to the bone if not downright illegal stunts being pulled (fake evaluation of stocks as pennies on the dollar is only a start) simply put if one was not rich one would be in jail for tax fraud but those rules don’t apply to those of Romney’s ilk.
This is what he has allowed us to see.
One other benefit of this whole thing has been the eclipse of Mrs. Romney as a spokesman for the warm and human side of Mitt Romney that we never see. In a less than stellar choice of words during an interview she said that ‘you people’ had seen as much of Mitt’s tax returns as you were going to see. Combine this with the 70K tax break they got for the dancing horse they own ( I don’t mind rich playing with horses but getting a tax break for it does seem a bit too far) and suddenly Mrs. Romney was being pictured as the new Marie Antoinette by cartoonists all across the country. She has since been quietly shoved back in the kitchen.
Meantime the GOP is trying to make this about Harry Reid and there are a lot of enablers in the media who want this to be about Harry Reid. Accusations of McCarthyism have been made. On the left the ‘we must always be fair even while being disemboweled” group has clutched pearls and said bad things about Harry Reid. Harry has stood by his comment.
I suspect that the Washington press easily bored by things will move on but the Obama campaign can’t help but figure that anytime Mitt seems to be getting a bit of an edge they can use this issue like a canoe paddle and whack him on the side of the head. Obama has been in many many respects a colossal disappointment but he knows how to get elected.
