Listen tea party Republican conservative fundagelicals: you would never ever let Pres. Obama get away with this kind of secrecy. It’s time you let YOUR presidential candidate know that he needs to show the American people at least 10 years worth of tax returns. And the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because he’s hiding something. We get to ask what he’s hiding and expect to find out. And don’t even try to compare fake “birth certificate” or college transcript conspiracies with Romney’s tax returns.
Steve Benen asks, incredulously: “Reince Priebus thinks questions about Romney’s secret tax returns are as legitimate as questions about Obama’s college transcripts?”
“As a purely objective matter, there are important unanswered questions about Romney’s offshore finances, controversial investments, unanswered questions about his individual retirement account that somehow ended up with more than $100 million, and claims about his business that contradict SEC filings. Romney himself promised to “go back and look” at these returns to look at the tax rates he paid — a promise he’s apparently already broken.
“These are legitimate areas of inquiry in a presidential race. Donald Trump’s wild-eyed conspiracy theories are not. That Priebus can’t tell the difference is discouraging.”
No. No, of course Priebus doesn’t believe they’re both legitimate areas of inquiry — but what else is he going to say at this point? That’s the best aid and comfort the rightwing nutjob apologists can come up with to distract the dittoheads from really thinking about what exactly the King of Bain is hiding from them. The GOP motto might as well be ‘Vote Blind’ because that’s what they’ll be doing, willingly, if they continue to make excuses for their candidate.
Are you kidding me? What about all of Obama college records?? I care more about the millions Barry spent sealing and protecting those records than seeing Romneys tax returns. Frankly, neither of them really matter. What matters is this country is SCREWED from Obama’s anti-business and anti-american policies. THE MAN HAS SPENT FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS IN FOUR YEARS!!! And scandals? Lets not forget the scandals! Fast & Furious, Solyndra (and all of the other green energy frauds), MF Global (Why isn’t Corzine in jail???) and the attempted bribery of Reverend Wright? Finally, how many times has he and his Attorney General ignored federal, selectively enforced federal law and TRAMPLED THE CONSTITUTION?
If you have specific charges, make them. Romneys tax records are a giant fishing expedition, PERIOD! When you account for all of Obama’s illegal and immoral activities about, get back to me. Of course by then, we’ll already have a new President!
You’ve made it clear that Romney has your vote regardless of any information you have or don’t have about him — he’s simply ‘not Obama’ and that’s good enough for you. That should be embarrassing but it probably makes perfect sense to you. However outside of your very narrow fringe group of dittoheads, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of independent voters in America who don’t think like you and want to know basic information about each candidate — and, guess what?, tax returns are considered basic information.
And here’s exactly what’s wrong with the extreme right of the 21st century Republican Party: disordered thinking, knee-jerk partisan arguments, hypocritical expectations, and low-information “beliefs” gained through a constant feedback loop of subliminal propaganda from Fox / Rush / WND. Congratulations on your programming, sir. It’s a success.
The matter at hand, in this post, is Mitt Romney’s tax returns and why he will not — why he refuses — to release them like every other presidential candidate has for decades, including our current president. All the straw man arguments in the world won’t conceal the fact that there’s obviously something in his returns that Romney doesn’t want the American people to see. I guess we’ll see how that works out for him.