Delaware Liberal

Prove It!

Mitt “Because I said so” Romney:

The fascination with taxes I’ve paid I find to be very small-minded compared to the broad issues we face. But I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past ten years, I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I’ve paid taxes every single year. Harry Reid’s charge is totally false. I’m sure waiting for Harry to put up whoever told him. I don’t believe it for a minute by the way. But every year I’ve paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the amount goes well above 20 percent.

Mitt “Trust Me” Romney thinks people asking about his taxes are small-minded.  Seriously, these people need to learn their place.  (And could someone explain to me why Mitt felt the need to place his tax returns front and center.  Again.)  After all, believing what a candidate says is the Republican way.  Unless you’re a Dem President, then…

You’re not an American citizen (even after you show your short and long form birth certificate)

You’re a Muslim, even though you say you’re a Christian

You hate America, even though you say “God bless America”

You’re a Socialist, even though you say you’re not.

So spare me Mitt Romney’s case of the vapors.  Seriously, this guy is the biggest baby in politics, and definitely not a person you’d want next to you in a foxhole – Hell, he’d probably use your body as a human shield. 🙂

Yesterday, Harry Reid laid it on the line:

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” Reid’s spokesman, Adam Jentleson, said Thursday. “Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he’s hiding. Romney seems to think he plays by a different set of rules than every other presidential candidate for the last thirty years, all of whom lived up to the standard of transparency set by Mitt Romney’s father and released their tax returns.”

Go Harry!  Truly, the way Harry Reid has handled this has been a thing of beauty.  Meteor Blades spells it out:

Harry Reid has been right from the get-go. It’s simple. Mitt Romney can clear everything up just by releasing his tax returns. If he’s telling the truth that he is in the 35 percent income tax bracket but has only been paying at the 13 percent level all these years—not at a much lower level—then he can release the returns, embarrass Reid, extract an apology and come out smelling, well, like a guy in the 35 percent tax bracket who regularly pays a 13 percent rate, what the average construction worker does.

Until then, he should stop embarrassing himself with the “trust me” comments.

There’s a reason Mitt “None Of Your Business” Romney won’t do the obvious and release his tax returns, and it has nothing to do with the outrageous demands of “small-minded” voters.

This is NOT a matter of principle.  Not releasing the tax returns is a calculated political strategy which boils down to this:  It is less damaging to take the hit on not releasing taxes than releasing the taxes.  That’s it.  That’s the bottom line.  All the talk about small-mindedness, trusting Mitt, etc. is just that – Talk.

Mitt should have released his taxes months ago and moved on.  That is Politics 101.

And, (sorry, Mitt) but it’s not going away – even Mitt won’t drop it.  And now the Obama Campaign has just raised the stakes again!

President Obama’s team is offering Mitt Romney a deal on taxes: Publicly release five years of returns, and the Obama campaign will drop its insistence for additional tax information.

“I am writing to ask again that the Governor release multiple years of tax returns,” wrote Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, “but also to make an offer that should address his concerns about the additional disclosures. Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide. So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign.”

Unsurprisingly, the Romney Campaign has refused.  Remember, this is political strategy.  The Romney campaign has calculated the damage between releasing the tax returns and not releasing the tax returns and concluded that releasing the tax returns would be far more damaging than all negative press and awkward questions (both of which take the Romney Campaign continually off-message) they’ve been receiving.

As a political junkie, the Romney Campaign’s “strategy” baffles me.  For crying out loud, why don’t they shut this tax conversation down?  Hell, they keep breathing new life into this issue.  They’ve even dragged Ann “No More Tax Returns From Us” Romney into this mess – another political no no.  And every time Romney and Co open their mouths they not only elevate the issue they raise more questions.

What the hell is in those tax returns?  We already know about the low tax rates, the off-shore accounts, etc. so… what else is there?  Because there’s gotta be something in order to justify political suicide.

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