Gov. Rick Perry, who called on Mitt Romney to cough up his tax returns when they were running against each other, stopped short Tuesday of pressing the presumptive Republican nominee to produce more records.
Perry said candidates for public office should be “as transparent as you can be with your tax returns and other aspects of your life,” but he wouldn’t directly answer whether Romney should produce more than the two tax returns he has promised to give the media.
Instead, Perry pivoted to President Obama, saying he should make his college transcripts available for public inspection.
“I certainly think it is inappropriate for the president of the United States to not [make] his college transcript and his law school transcripts public, that he should make those available,” Perry said. “I’m all about transparency.”
Pressed again to say whether that meant Romney should produce more tax records, Perry would not specifically recommend he do that as other conservatives have.
Newsflash: No one really cares very much about this. Like Gov. Perry, I’ve thought since the primaries that Romney ought to release his returns, but it’s far from a deal breaker if he doesn’t. We know far less about what Barack Obama really thinks than we know about what’s on Romney’s old tax returns, but what we do know about Obama is sufficient to find him unfit for the presidency and to fire him from it. This week, for instance, we learned why Obama does not respect business success, and that when the going gets tough, Barack Obama gets up and leaves. America doesn’t like and doesn’t respect quitters.
The Texas Tribune, which reported this story, is trying now to work with the rest of the mainstream media and turn this into a twist on Perry, who in 2010 demanded that Democrat gubernatorial challenger Bill White release his tax returns. There are differences here, though, between that race and this one. Perry has been consistently transparent for decades; White had not been. In that race demanding transparency was apples to apples. In the presidential race, if Obama had been similarly transparent then he might have case against Romney, but the fact is Obama has been a master of disguise and the mainstream media has not called him out on that at all. The media pester Romney on his taxes, and now even pester Rick Perry about Mitt Romney’s taxes, but give Obama a pass on, well, his entire life.
Nice try, Trib. But I still remember how patently unfair that publication was when a certain Democrat unleashed a whopper of a gaffe and the Trib at first failed to cover it, and then blamed it all on conservative bloggers who were covering it.
The first Executive Order, 13489, Obama enacted on January 21, 2009 is to seal his records. By comparison, G.W. Bush’s first two Executive Orders, 13198 & 13199, enacted on January 29, 2001 are to deal with “Agency Responsibilities with respect to Faith Based & Community Initiatives.” We all remember Bush’s school records becoming press fodder. What stinks here? Why the secrecy? Something is terribly wrong.
With respect to his tax returns, Romney could make great hay with them. That is, the next time Obama publicly mentions them, Romney can respond, “Oh, I’ll release them, but not because you demand them. Or would you care to release your college records in full? I might change my mind, if you were to.”
Ball –> Obama’s court.
That would be grand, wouldn’t it? There is no law that states that presidential candidates should reveal their tax returns, but it seems to be an historical mandate. It appears that both Obama and Romney have something to hide. The tax form non-revelation, I can understand, but the not revealing school records *sniffs* about something altogether different.
Well, that’;s it, yeah.
Romney, on the one hand, cam certainly say. “why do you need to know my personal financial details, for Gosh Sake?! I had to report to the SEC, you understand?! Isn’t that sufficient?!”
Obama, however, has made a great deal about his academic prowess, yet won’t report to us, and he didn’t have to report any details to the SEC or any public reporting body. He’s a cypher making claims he won’t back up.
Was that what you meant?
Thanks for clarifying this. The MSM has been shoving the Governor in with the Haley Barbour and establishment types calling for full disclosure of Romney’s tax returns. The President in his books and practices has been the model of ways to evade. When he comes up with FULL DISCLOSURES, including on “Fast and Furious” we might rethink our positions.
In Re his “This week, for instance, we learned why Obama does not respect business success, and that when the going gets tough, Barack Obama gets up and leaves.” We might want to keep in mind that our “Presidential venture capitalist is using our TAX moneys” to keep investing in “Green Schemes with buddies,” including offshore schemes for high end electric cars, and when they “belly up? he and his adviser find new Duds to “invest” in.
Actually, the party of stupid could use this call to release Romney’s tax records to their advantage if they chose to do so.
Basically, Romney can point to his wealth and state honestly that he made that wealth on his own (nobody did it for him) by making smart economic and business decisions starting all the way back to his college days and the courses he chose at that time to study.
He could then offer to release his personal records – including his academic records from back in college that indicate at least some academic training in the field of business and finance – in exchange for Obammer doing the same so the nation could compare their academic records as well as the results of their financial decisions.
Be great if he could make some linkage there and put Obummer on the spot at the same time.
Anyway, this is the kind of financial decision making he wants to bring to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
If allowed to do so, the rest of the country can have the same opportunities to also create wealth at the individual level the same as he did, he’s been through the process, and he knows how to remove the impediments that prevent the creation and accumulation of wealth at the personal level.
There is not a soul in the country that would not want the kind of money this man has.
Now, how can Obammer claim competency on a similar level?
There have been only two large endeavors he’s ever been involved in – one was his national campaign to win the presidency in 2008, and the other….?
Well “the other” is the running of the executive branch for the past 3.5 years – during which time the national economy recovered (weakly) from a recession in 2009 and has since been run back into the ground with a consistently high unemployment rate.
The recovery even the Obammer was claiming credit for back then can put a break between the recession that started under the Bush administration and the current economic problems – which voids the claims that it is all Bush’s fault and that they inherited a bigger problem than they realized.
After all, there WAS a recovery back in 2009.
But what did anyone realistically expect anyway?
The man even had his credit card rejected once at a national democrat convention! He has now run up the nations credit card and forced all of us to consider something akin to national bankruptcy!
Obambi can’t claim success for his economic policies, and this is his greatest weakness.
Romney should compare and contrast his own financial successes over decades with Obummers failure over the past half decade.