Mitt Romney is by all accounts a nice guy. But he doesn’t appear to be someone to be trifled with.
Mitt Romney gave his most expansive answer yet over questions about his tax returns, telling reporters Thursday he has “never paid less than 13 percent” in taxes over the last 10 years — contrary to what Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has claimed.
“I did go back and look at my taxes,” Romney said during a news conference at a South Carolina airport. “And over the past 10 years, I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 (percent) or something like that.”
The response follows months of calls for him to release his returns, including from some top Republicans. However, he has declined to make them public, saying it could give his opponents “more ammunition” against him.
Romney had some choice words Thursday for Reid, calling the accusation by him that Romney didn’t pay taxes for a decade “totally false.”
“I’m sure waiting for Harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him,” Romney challenged. “I don’t believe it for a minute, by the way.”
That’s a nice-guy’s way of calling someone a bald faced liar.
The Obama campaign, with nothing better to talk about, is now demanding five years of tax returns instead of 10 (for now).
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina made the tax-disclosure offer to Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades in a letter Friday morning. Messina said he was taking the step because Romney “apparently fears the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide.”Romney’s wife, Ann, has repeatedly stated that concern in interviews, arguing that the more the couple releases, the more questions are asked.
Which is obviously true. Obama’s is a campaign that dishonestly and purposefully read “felon” into old Bain Capital financial documents that have been public information for years, all based on ridiculously shoddy reporting from the appropriately named liberal blog Talking Points Memo. One would think that at least one of the zillions of lawyers around that campaign would have paused long enough to note that TPM’s Josh Marshall has no financial background and seldom knows what he’s talking about. But then again, this is a campaign whose Treasury secretary can’t even run Turbo Tax correctly.
Obama’s is a campaign that is hiding behind the noxious Harry Reid on the tax issue, when Reid doesn’t even release his own taxes and has a history of fabulism. Obama’s is a campaign that has accused Mitt Romney of being a bully, a vampire, a thief, a felon, a murderer and a slaver who would put people “back in chains.”
And it’s only August.
Update: NRO has the email exchange between Jim Messina of the Obama campaign and Matt Rhoades of the Romney campaign. Notice how narrow Messina’s promise not to keep goading Romney if he releases five years of taxes is.
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.
What about super PACs? One of those has already accused Romney of murdering a woman via cancer.
A super PAC needs to start hammering Oafbam on all his hidden records. have Romney release medical, school, grades, any and all info that Oafbam is hiding. Drag Rezko out. See how fast they shut their traps.
Have Romney show his S card and ask Oafbam to do the same—–
Romney’s reply should be: Your college and law school transcripts for my tax returns.
I predict a “leak” by the IRS to the NYT of Romney returns. Sure sounds like a threat, Chicago style, to me. Remember Ryan’s sealed divorce records?
Anyone want to bet that the Obama campaign doesn’t already have those tax returns they’re demanding to see? Remember, the IRS has been used as a hammer against opponents by both Clinton and Obama, where anyone they don’t like gets audited, and Axelrod loves to “unseal” legally sealed documents. Does anyone believe for a second he wouldn’t violate the confidentiality of the IRS records?
Obama is using every available resource of the government to aid in his campaign. They’ve probably already produced the attack ads based on Romney’s unreleased returns, but they need Romney to give them up himself or face all sorts of nasty impeachable charges for abuse of power, that the “unbiased” “objective” “news” media would not be able to ignore.
If leaked, Romney should refuse to confirm that those are indeed his tax records. “That’s between me and the IRS,” he could say. For the IRS to confirm them to be his tax submissions would in itself constitute a criminal offense. And Romney would have the opportunity to accuse the Obama administration of violating privacy protections and politicizing the IRS, things most voters already fear.
Romney needs to force the Demos to make the first move. He should not release a damned thing; as a wealthy American, I’ll bet his tax return has all sorts of incomes and deductions that average Americans don’t use. Some incomes and deductions are open to IRS interpretations. All it would take is for one of those interpretations to be misrepresented in a Super Pac ad.
Remember, these are the same people who have already accused Romney of being racist, a felon, and killing a union worker’s cancer-stricken wife. They would not be above falsely accusing Romney of not paying all his taxes. Reid has already done so, and it is backfiring because Reid is creepy.
Romney wouldn’t want to have to stand up at rallys of in the debates, and have to bring along his team of tax lawyers to explain his tax returns.
Go ahead and let the Demos leak to the NYT. You know that the West Wing has already been through Romney’s returns with a fine tooth comb, and have attack ads just sitting in the can. Romney shouldn’t hand them the tax returns – make the Demos “leak” the returns. Americans don’t like tax cheats, but we really don’t like snitches.
I bet Romney didn’t report his earnings as head of the SLC Olympic Games or as governor. He took no money for the former and $1.00 per year for the latter. Let’s see, he evaded taxes on $4.00. Bad boy!
Sure, I’ll assume that Obambus already has Romney’s tax returns, but the Obambus campaign will not release them – for the simple reason that there’s nothing bad in them! The Dems think the *issue* is good for them. Now, just maybe Romney thinks the issue is *bad* for the Dems, as it shows they don’t want to talk about the economy or anything serious. In which case he can continue to publicly make claims about his taxes and still not release them. Maybe Romney is *intentionally* teasing them?
– ignore and wait for the leak. He is obligated to tithe and so it may turn out that tens of millions over the years went to his church. Maybe that will look bad, but how much did Obama give Rev. Wright’s church?