Romney’s Rock & Hard Place: VP’s Tax Returns
If my name was Harry Reid I would be reserving one question for Romney’s announcement of his VP pick:
“Governor, how many years of tax forms did you request from Governor/Senator Jindal, Pawlenty, Portman?”
And August 27th is not that far away. Particularly if the idea is to announce the VP pick prior to the Convention itself.
Rock and hard place. Goose and gander. Pot and kettle. Scylla and Carybdis.
As Shakespeare might have said:
“Double, double (standard), and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble”
I don’t see how Romney can chill this particular pot in time to keep it from burning him.
I guess Romney considers the vice president position more important than the presidency. After all, he turned over 23 years of returns to McCain and only one year to the American people.
No, no, no, Bruce; you don’t understand. Romney’s purpose in (almost certainly) requesting copies of several years of tax returns from VP contenders is to ensure that he doesn’t accidentally select a running mate who’s been too stupid to route the proceeds from his overseas investments through shell corporations in Bermuda and bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland—and who therefore is not really a jobs creator, having, y’know, paid all that money in taxes and thus not having enough left over to use to create jobs.
certainly bruce is naive to think the voting public won’t find a way to rationalize Romney’s tax returns, or lack of them, if they are otherwise attracted to him by some emotional hook.
it’s love, you know.
“Governor, how many years of tax forms did you request from Governor/Senator Jindal, Pawlenty, Portman?”
All Romney shoud say is “None of your business.” The End.
Yeah like Sammy that worked fucking great when applied to Obama’s Occidental and Columbia College transcripts. BTW sealed by Federal Law.
Literally “none of anyone’s business”.
And WTF does Romney apparently think it is any of HIS effing business what his VP prospects paid?
Why is the point. Much like the one apparently on the top of your head. Hidden by the tin foil RNC hat.
To slow this down for Sambo.
Romney can either adopt a position that as candidate for President he is by ipso facto an honorable man for whom challenging his past record of tax compliance is equivalent to lese majeste. Or tell his VP vetting crew that any evidence from various candidates past tax information that might cast doubt on their performance as a POTENTIAL POTUS is so important as to require intensive review.
But how do you maintain both positions? “Well everyone knows that I Mitt Am a Virtuous Man. But those Lesser Beings Pawlenty, Portman and Jindal need to Prove their Worthiness Unto Me”.
I mean even in Mormon theology you have to die before you become Supreme Ruler of your own planet. Mitt seems to be advancing the process somewhat.
Sammy’s “none of your business” suggestion makes perfect sense, from Sammy’s point of view. Sammy is going to vote for the Republican, no matter what. Anyone whose mind is made up doesn’t need to see tax returns or business history or a thorough discussion of Romney’s argument for his health care plan.
Similarly, anyone who has decided to vote for Obama doesn’t need to see Romney’s tax returns, because seeing them won’t make a difference to their vote.
And those people no longer matter much, except may be in a get-out-the-vote sort of way. The people who matter now are undecided voters in a handful of swing states. So far, keeping the focus on Romney’s nutty performance overseas and his “otherness” at home is working great for Democrats. “None of your business” is clearly not working with swing voters. Romney’s approval rating is the lowest it has been since he became the clear winner in the primaries. Obama is polling well enough that, if the election were held today, he’d win the electoral college decision by a fair margin. Obama’s surrogates are going to keep doing what they are doing, because it’s working.
Sammy
i wonder if you are capable of self doubt or self examination…. actually not many people are.
But give it a try. You may think Romney’s, and his VP’s taxes are no body’s business. Certainly YOUR taxes are nobody’s business… except IRS.
But someone running for President or Vice President is asking us to trust him to make hugely important decisions. We have a right to ask for information that will help us know if we can trust him, or want to trust him. Of course he may refuse to reveal his taxes, but then we may refuse to trust him.
On the other hand kharris is perfectly right… most voters will rationalize whatever Romney or Obama do (*) according to how they feel about the emotional hooks that their public relations specialists devise to hook the voters.
I know I wouldn’t vote for either of them, no matter what their taxes said.
* is for kharris who sometimes claims to be an expert in grammar… seems to me that “grammar” would require that R OR O be followed by “does”, but my “native ear” says “do.”
If I was Harry Reid I would be asking one question,”Mr. President, what criteria do you use to order the murder of United States citizens?”
The president of the U.S. is personally ordering the execution of United States citizens and refusing to provide any details to the process or the legality of these orders yet his supporters are arguing that “transparency” regarding his political opponent’s tax returns is today’s most important issue.
As I think back I can remember dozens of posts at AB regarding Romney’s tax returns but not a single post about the president’s extra-judicial killing of U.S. citizens. Dan, please correct me if I am wrong.
little john
i don’t know about the posts. but I agree that the killings are bad, and one reason i won’t vote for O.
the other big reason is that he seems to be trying to kill SS.
and it’s not just the U.S. citizens. we do ourselves no good bombing people in foreign countries. even if it wasn’t evil on its own merits. but who believes in evil anymore.
“* is for kharris who sometimes claims to be an expert in grammar…”
Do I? Given the baldness of that assertion, I suppose you have evidence. Examples of me making such a claim? I don’t recall ever having claimed expertise in grammar. Perhaps you have confused “grammar” with “meaning”. The standard late 20th century view among linguists was that native speakers are all expert in meaning. In that sense, I am willing to claim expertise in the meaning of American English usage.
kharris
me too. so what do we do when we disagree about meaning in American English usage?
note the different preposition. it affects the meaning.
i was just twitting you… because you deserve it. but what is the answer to my question… does? or do?
I deserve it? Well you cowardly little turd, hiding behind anonymous and presuming to judge. When you climb out of your hiding place, maybe I’ll give a shit about do and does.
If you presume to criticize me, you spineless puss bag, at least bother to get it right. Grammar? Stupid shit.
little john,
Maybe not dozens of posts on Romney’s taxes issues, but a number from several from Linda and Beverly, one from Thomas.
The extra judicial killings with secret criterion and secret constitutional justification (ie. national security) is extraordinarily important. Of course there is a long history of Presidents doing such and some coverage.
The new website has more latitude by adding discrete sections for posts…AB is an econoblog first, but is expanding topics. Taxes have always been a topic.
If you are suggesting we are ignoring this President’s problems in the realm of economics and finance, I don’t think so. There is always more than enough to discuss. And a long list that is beyond our scope.
On the other hand, from what I believe the anonymous to you is coberly since it mentions SS, and SS is a topic we cover, coberly has said it often here…
I see Bruce is adding some flame to comments…and kharris is pissed. Miss you both…but I will go get a new supply of roll aides.
kharris
yep. that’s our kharris all right.
just checking.
Dan I sign all my posts. But Dale seems a little hit or miss. I mean I know which Anons are Dale even if he doesn’t sign. And for that matter after a decade or so of sharing blog comment threads with kharris I recognize his. But even though I tend to agree with both of them on the big issues I wish they each figured out how to get the comment system to properly ID them. It isn’t that effing hard and would eliminate a certain amount of this “Come back you coward” posturing.
Sign every post or establish an account that will do it for you. Christ this takes me back to the earliest days of the blogosphere where commenters on various sites would indignicantly claim “I am the REAL Anonymous”. hmmm
I occasionally get tripped up by a particular comment system but I can say that 99% of my blog commenting since 2002 or so has been under the Nom de Plume ‘Bruce Webb’. Which by some weird coincidence also shows upon my birth certificate, drivers license and voter ID. Let’s just say the CIA, Secret Service and NSA won’t have a lot of difficulty cracking my real identity.
I rarely agree with kharris on the issues. But his comments, although acerbic, are always insightful and worth reading.
Bruce,
Romney doesn’t do his own tax returns. Like anyone who is wildly successful, his businesses are incredibly complex and span many tax jurisdictions. He pays people to plan it for him. They say “according to tax law, if you do it this way you can save/defer this amount in taxes”
I’m sure as a public figure, he tells them not to test the boundaries as publicity is important.
Romney released two years. So did McCain. I don’t recall you demanding more of McCain in 2008. How many did John Kerry release? Reid and Pelosi won’t release their taxes. Where’s the outrage? Obama won’t release any academic transcripts, yet Bush, Kerry, Gore did. Where’s the outrage, or even curiosity?
Oh yeah, those aren’t Obama talking points.
Bruce
i tried very hard to get blogger to recognize my name. they said they “detected unusual activity on my account.” and said i could have them call me on the phone to provide a “code.” i didn’t like that idea… what the hell would someone who had my name and password and email address accomplish by giving them a phonenumber and saying they were me?
but i decided whathehell and did it anyway and got a nice message saying that sometimes it takes 15 minutes to get back with the code, but if it has been longer than 15 minutes i should try again.
i really do have better things to do that play these stupid games.
as for kharris, he’s mental. i tend to agree with him on subtance myself… which worries me… but he gets hysterical over imaginary insults. which, contrary to what people say about me, i do not.
coberly