This has been bugging me since yesterday. The Hill published this filler post about Slippery Mitt’s tax returns.
A top campaign official who worked for Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential bid and helped select his running mate said Sunday that Mitt Romney’s tax returns “do not look anything like the average American,” but held nothing which prevented him from being on the ticket.
Steve Schmidt, McCain’s former campaign strategist, who viewed Romney’s tax returns when the presumptive nominee was being vetted for the vice presidential slot in the last cycle said Romney was an “extremely wealthy man.”
Wait. Would this be the same Steve Schmidt who claimed he didn’t see the tax returns only a few days ago?
Is it too much to ask that our professional media gatekeepers ask Mr. Schmidt to explain this glaring inconsistency? With journalism like this it’s small wonder the public is so misinformed.
Valdivia
because we can’t worry our pretty little heads about it we have to trust them when they tell us there’s nothing important to glean form them
c u n d gulag
Someone got to him, and paid him off, saying – “If you want to keep your phony-baloney job, you’d better take this payoff and play the game, or we’ll have you STFU permanently.”
I sure hope Schmidt didn’t hurt his back picking-up that roll of dimes – since that’s about all he’s worth to them.
Or, that he has good health care coverage if he did.
Cassidy
You people don’t need to concern yourself with this.
mechwarrior online
A rumor flying around is that the returns might end Romney for an exact legal reason. Namely that nobody who has received amnesty for a serious crime can be president. If Romney indeed did get amnesty for tax evasion than he cannot be president.
That right there would be the bomb shell.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/prediction-romney-will-no_b_1684234.html
There is a huge chance that Mitt might not actually be able to be president, and that the proof is in those tax returns. Republicans might be pushing for them to come out because 1) they never wanted him to start with and now the knives are out, or 2) they realize that should this come out later it would be horrible and would rather do the purge on their own than face having him the nominee post convention.
It’s interesting to look at.
Ben Franklin
The Hill’s front page looks like FOX.
karen marie
I really don’t know how people aren’t yet running mad in the streets from the dissonance.
This morning I turned on the TV — something that I haven’t done in five months — and was informed by the socialist-islamo-fascists at MSNBC that in January 2013 “the country is going over a fiscal cliff.” It’s apparently the fault of the Democrats because the question posed was “what are they going to do about it.”
I promptly turned the TV off because it doesn’t belong to me and I was afraid I was going to throw my coffee cup in that direction if I was subjected to any more.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Steve Schmidt? Another Made Man.
Don’t owe anyone shit. Least of all us Little People.
Quicksand
Hmm. It is a pretty common name.
kansi
Sadly, I am way past being amazed at the GOP’s double talk, shameless hypocrisy and complete disdain for the idea that voters deserve the truth. Though, I may never be able to unclench my jaw again.
aimai
My personal theory about this is that Romney can’t release the returns because:
1) He is richer than he says
2) He does not want the Evangelicals to see how much he tithes to the Mormon Church and
3) He does not want the Mormon community to find out that he does not, in fact, tithe ten percent like he says he does.
Its a triple threat.
aimai
redshirt
@karen marie: I haven’t watched that POS for years. But there I was looking to buy some coffee beans this weekend and see Starbucks all branded with “Morning Joe”.
NOT!
redshirt
@mechwarrior online: I’ll believe it when it happens but boy, if it happened, would it be sweet!
japa21
@mechwarrior online: And I believe the amnesty was post 2008, so that would not have shown up in the returns shown to McCain.
As far as the apparent contradiction, it all depends on the definition of “see”. Schmidt may not have seen the returns in terms of physically reviewing all of them. He may have just been advised of the results of a review of them by another staffer.
Origuy
@mechwarrior online:
Abrams in the HuffPo made that statement, as though there were something in the Constitution to prohibit that. I can see nothing of the sort. A commenter there asked the same question; no response yet.
Politically, it would be awkward at least. But changing the top of the ticket at this point would be worse.
Calouste
You do realize that people end up doing journalism degrees because the math and logic required to do a business degree is too hard for them?
And of course a significant part of the press are nepotism hires.
mdblanche
You betcha.
Tonal Crow
@Origuy:
Ya. The Constitution requires only that the President be “a natural born Citizen…”, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years. Art.II s.1 cl.5. I’m pretty sure that the Constitution does not grant anyone the power to change these requirements in any way.
MattF
Journalism? Ha ha.
Tonal Crow
OT: John, the “you do not have permission to edit this comment” bug is back. I just got it trying to edit https://balloon-juice.com/2012/07/23/say-anything-4/#comment-3482044 with over 2 minutes remaining on the edit timer.
Disco
The Romneys have said they won’t release the tax info. Does this end the issue? It appears to have done that.
Libby Spencer
My personal theory on the tax returns is there’s nothing technically illegal in them. Rmoney has an army of lawyers and accountants to prevent that. I’d guess he’s also scrupulous about tithing the 10%. Probably gives more. I’m thinking the real reason he doesn’t want to release them is because he doesn’t want his business associates to see them. They might contradict things he told them in the course of their financial deals. Also too, betting he may have owned many more offshore shell corps than are shown in the 2010 return.
redshirt
Perhaps we will have reached the Wingularity when a convicted felon (or a person pardoned from a felony) runs proudly for President, and gets his minimum 45% of the vote. After all, it was those LIBERALS that made him a criminal in the first place!
Comrade Javamanphil
It’s too soon. Stop trying to politicize the tragedy of his contradiction. We need time to heal.
Susanne S.
Somebody has to ask the Mittster if he would buy a company that only let him examine one year of partial financials.
Ben Franklin
My personal theory on the tax returns is there’s nothing technically illegal in them. Rmoney has an army of lawyers and accountants to prevent that. I’d guess he’s also scrupulous about tithing the 10%
He is probably legal. That’s not his concern. He’s worried about the perception
that he’s egregiously avaricious in his atavism. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
NonyNony
@aimai:
I’m betting that he is completely and utterly scrupulous about his dealings with the LDS church and has tithed exactly 10% of his income every year. Maybe not a penny more, but he will have scrupulously fulfilled that obligation.
I think he’s filled out his tax forms completely and 100% legally as well. And I’ll bet that his typical tax rate is sub-20% of his income and that somewhere in the last 10 years or so he paid something close to 0% perfectly legally. Every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed and not a single loophole left unexploited.
And that’s exactly why his returns are so toxic. Because it will lay bare exactly how much “cheating” goes on by the folks like Romney who are at the top that is perfectly legal and written right into the tax code. His peer will kill him if the truth about how little in taxes most of them actually pay ever comes out – they’ve spent 30+ years on a narrative that says that the rich pay too much in taxes. Mitt can’t have that – especially when the centerpiece of his campaign is that rich people still pay too much in taxes!
daverave
@redshirt:
Governor Scott of Florida sez “hello”!
mechwarrior online
@redshirt:
I think that’s the problem. Has anybody ever tried to run a convicted/pardoned/amnesty felon for president before? Even if you tried the entire personal responsibility, law and order, sort of stuff goes out the window. People have had scandal before though.
muddy
@japa21:
It just depends on what your definition of “see” is. Maybe he saw them/did not see them retroactively.
muddy
@japa21:
It just depends on what your definition of “see” is. Maybe he saw them/did not see them retroactively.
redshirt
@mechwarrior online: I think a large percentage of Americans would vote for “Inanimate Carbon Rod” as long as it had an (R) after its name and its campaign ads made clear it hates everything you hate.
pseudonymous in nc
Which is exactly what I said here back when it was making headlines, and what aimai reiterates: this ain’t your garden variety 1040, or even your common Schedule C.
Filing tax returns in April is more of a “shared American experience” than watching the Super Bowl, and every voter knows what his or her annual return looks like: you copy across your W-2s or 1099s and your mortgage interest and your donations to Goodwill, and work out whether you get a refund or send a check.
The tax returns of the very rich are different from you and me: they have more special IRS forms for carried interest from limited partnerships located in the Cayman Islands.
James E. Powell
The main reason that I was sure that Al Gore won Florida in 2000 is that the Bush, with his brother being the governor and his campaign manager being the person in charge of counting the votes, that is the people who knew best what the votes were, worked like demons to make sure that nobody ever saw what was there.
The main reason I am sure that Romney’s tax returns have information that will seriously damage his campaign is that Romney, the person who knows best what is in them, is working like a demon to make sure that nobody ever sees what’s in them.
PeakVT
I think it’s most likely a very low tax rate, with an element of I-don’t-have-to-if-I-don’t-want-to, that is behind Romney’s refusal. The second most likely reason is that he participated in the 2009 amnesty, which he wouldn’t have put on anything he gave to McCain.
@Disco: A criminal act pushed the tax issue off the front page, not Romney’s stonewalling.
Villago Delenda Est
Yes.
SATSQ.
SteveinSC
I still say it may be what Romney was doing for the Mormon Church as a money conduit, not what he was doing for himself.
rikyrah
just as reminder..
WILLARD HAS RELEASED NO COMPLETED TAX RETURNS.
NONE.
ZERO YEARS
Nellcote
Why did the 2002 Olympics Committee destroy their financial records?
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romney-olympic-archive-off-limits/story?id=16811397#.UA0y8MXZGrg
burnspbesq
@mechwarrior online:
Oddly, my copy of the Constitution doesn’t say anything about that disqualification. It may be a practical disqualifier, but not a legal disqualifier.
Also too, assuming for purposes of discussion that Romeny took the Son-of-Boss settlement or participated in OVDI, or both, those would not be reflected on his returns, but rather in closing agreements.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
A FBAR IS NOT A TAX RETURN, AND IS NOT REQUIRED TO BE FILED AS AN ATTACHMENT TO A TAX RETURN. WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS SEVERAL TIMES.
burnspbesq
@Libby Spencer:
Not in 2010. He gave $1.25 million to the LDS church, and had more than $12.5 million in gross income.
Roy G.
If you want to make wingnuts’ heads explode, when they bring up that stupid shit about how only 40% of Americans pay federal income taxes every year, and so they have the unfair burden of paying for everything, ask them which group Romney is in, because he paid $0 in taxes in 2009.
Then when they start to sputter about how they’re sure he did, ask them to prove it.
Bobby Thomson
@Villago Delenda Est: Brian Beutler at TPM just acknowledged that Schmidt had claimed not to have seen the returns, but then concluded with “But Schmidt understands their political relevance.” Full stop.
It’s no wonder those hacks don’t allow comments.