Comments on: Vaulting Ambition

By: The Art of Leadership and Lessons from the Past – Edward M. Kennedy « We dream of things that never were and say: "Why not?"

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 04:04:37 +0000

[...] Vaulting Ambition (politicalirony.com) [...]

By: Iron Knee

Iron Knee — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 00:14:44 +0000

I should mention, the precedent for presidents (and vice presidents) disclosing their tax returns really got rolling after Spiro Agnew (Nixon’s VP) pleaded no contest to tax evasion in 1973 and had to resign. That’s how Gerald Ford became VP. The precedent is not just to release tax returns from before the election, but since then all sitting presidents and VPs) have released tax returns each year during their terms.

And when vetting Mitt Romney as his potential VP, McCain required 23 years of tax returns. Of course, nobody else has seen them, and as we know McCain did not pick Romney.

By: Iron Knee

Iron Knee — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 00:10:52 +0000

Yes, to find a presidential candidate who has released fewer tax returns than Romney, you have to go back to Gerald Ford. Ford did not release any returns, but he did release summary data for 1966 to 1975 (10 years). Bob Dole released 29 years of his tax returns.

John McCain only released two full years, but he released more information about his returns than Romney (including his wife’s returns and their family foundation’s returns). Also, McCain had been a senator for so long, we already knew quite a bit about his finances (because of FEC disclosure laws).

What makes this particularly hypocritical is that Romney is campaigning on the claim that taxes on the rich are too high and we need to cut them. He should put up or shut up.

By: ZIP-ZERO-NADA

ZIP-ZERO-NADA — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:04:45 +0000

Romney is a rich man, of that there is no doubt. But regardless of his personal wealth, his tax records should be made public because they speak to his CHARACTER as a human being, an American, and as a candidate for being the leader of the greatest nation on Earth. I don’t begrudge him his wealth; in fact it may demonstrate his qualities as a successful capitalist. But the means by which he acquires and protects his wealth should be very much in play for this election. Since when is QUALITY OF CHARACTER not a criteria for earning the job of President of the United States of America?

That said, I would be interested to know if there is a precedent for candidates disclosing personal income tax returns. Did Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan all disclose their tax returns prior to their respective election to office? ((Sorry if this info is already public record – I didn’t research it)).

CHARACTER. This will inform voters on the quality of the person that is the candidate, and should be in play.

By: wildwood

wildwood — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 22:31:01 +0000

To Jonah,if the loopholes are there then it’s not cheating. But artificially listing Bain shares at an incorrect cost is possibly illegal.

And to PTGoodman, the Swiss amnesty was to avoid penalties for “criminal” activities. This seems, if not the most likely reason for not showing his tax returns, it’s certainly in the top two or three reasons.

He is obviously hiding something, and electing him president is like putting the fox in the hen house.

By: Jonah

Jonah — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:20:18 +0000

David, Actually my point was more about not exploiting imperfect tax laws. For example, if Mitt Romney artificially reduced the value of his Bain shares so that he could place them in a Roth IRA where its value could increase tax free then he was making use of a loophole to exploit a tax law (the Roth IRA) that was created to encourage people less privileged than Romney to save for retirement.

Here’s another example of a wealthy guy exploiting the law albeit not for tax reasons but it sort of gets to the point i’m trying to make
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/02/wealthy-florida-man-adopts-adult-girlfriend-as-his-daughter/1#.UCQZRkJmT7s

By: ptgoodman

ptgoodman — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:14:29 +0000

I doubt that Romney did anything illegal. The question is whether or not he exploited every conceivable method, ordinary and extra-ordinary, of avoiding the payment of taxes. How did he get so much money in a 401k? It seems likely that he exploited loopholes in the tax code, where I define a “loophole” as something that is not even addressed in the tax code, which only tax lawyers know about, and that the people at H&R Block who you might use do not know anything about. Did Romney take advantage of loopholes not available to the rest of us?

I goes w/o saying that I would not vote for Romney or any other Republican for the foreseeable future. I won’t change until they do. They do not represent me, they do not represent the working people of the U.S., they represent protect only the interests of the wealthy.

By: David Freeman

David Freeman — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:34:54 +0000

Oops, Jonah I misread your sentence and incorrectly thought you said “why shouldn’t he be trusted?”. If I had read you correctly, I still would have made the same point but I would have worded it in a way that expanded on your point since apparently we actually agree. Bottom line, only the wealthy can really take advantage of most legal loopholes and the benefits of chasing loopholes are meager for the middle class.