By now – hopefully … you are aware of the recent claim by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that someone from Bain Capital told him that Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years. Romney objected to that and said, “Let me also say categorically: I have paid taxes every year. A lot of taxes. A lot of taxes.” Of course – he wants us to take his word for it because he has shared one incomplete tax return from 2010. Well – Reid has said publicly that he stands by his statement and that someone did in fact tell him Romney hadn’t paid taxes. But we do not know because Romney will not release his tax returns; tax experts believe he probably paid very little in taxes. If you’re unaware of all of this – you can read the background on this story HERE.
But now – it seems like high school. Republicans are calling Reid a “dirty liar” and Reid’s assistant has called Republicans ” a bunch of cowards”. These are your elected officials folks. Bottom line – Romney doesn’t want to share his tax returns, and one must conclude that there are a LOT of dead bodies in that tax return given the way Romney is clutching on to them. There is no way he’s releasing them at this point despite many calls by conservatives to do so. And if you’re keeping score – Romney gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain when he was being vetted for VP before McCain disqualified Romney and picked the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin.
Some choice quotes from Republicans on Sunday TV shows via Politico HERE:
“As far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen, you might want to go down that road, I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar, who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself. He complains about money but lives in the Ritz Carlton here, down the street. If this is on the agenda, I’m not going to go there. This is just a made-up issue. The fact that we’re going to spend any time talking about it is just ridiculous.”
~Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus“I’ve been around this town for a while. I actually like Harry. But what he did on the floor of the Senate is so out of bounds. I think he’s lying about his statement of knowing something about Romney.”
~South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham“This is a reckless and slanderous charge by Harry Reid. This is a guy who hasn’t released his own returns and for three years, can’t get a budget passed in the United States Senate.”
~Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell
Reid’s staff responded today via Talking Points Memo HERE:
The latest salvo in the intensifying spat comes from Reid’s chief of staff David Krone, who upped the taunts by calling Republicans “a bunch of cowards” and “henchmen for Romney” in an interview with Politico late Sunday night.
“To turn it around, all their childish rants this weekend about calling Reid a ‘liar’ and all that, it just shows you how scared they are that Harry Reid was telling the truth,” Krone told the paper.
Reid wasn’t fazed. His spokesman Adam Jentleson responded in the afternoon by vouching for the credibility of the source and inviting Romney to disprove the claim by releasing a series of tax returns. Calling him the “most secretive candidate since Richard Nixon,” Jentleson told TPM: “It’s clear Mitt Romney is hiding something, and the only way for him to clear this up is to be straight with the American people and release his tax returns.”
The allegation irritated the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, which called it “a smear from the fever swamps that say more about Mr. Reid’s ethics than they do about Mr. Romney’s taxes.” But Reid isn’t on the ballot this year; Romney is. And as the Journal argued, “Mr. Romney’s problem is that he can only disprove the charge by releasing his tax returns.”
But as Rachel Maddow has reported – Romney demanded when he ran for Governor that his opponent’s SPOUSE should share their tax returns … showing that indeed if the sauce is good for the goose, it is not good for the gander; more HERE:
And yet, when everyone expected Reid to back off and excuse himself, he doubled down, forcing another angry denial from the Romney camp. However, said Maddow, Romney did this very thing in 2002 when he was running for Massachusetts governor, he would not release his tax returns.
He demanded, however, that the husband of his opponent in that election, Shannon O’Brien, release his tax returns in addition to Mrs. O’Brien’s records, which were already available to the public. “What is she hiding?” demanded longtime Romney aide and confidant Eric Fehrnstrom.
And now the AFL-CIO is going up on the air attacking Romney for his secretive behavior HERE:
Workers Voice, the super PAC of the AFL-CIO, is supporting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the fight over Mitt Romney’s tax returns.
The super PAC announced plans on Monday to ramp up efforts calling on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to release more tax returns. The largest union-affiliated super PAC, Workers Voice launched a petition where anyone can sign and back up the recent charge led by Reid. The group also plans to add the tax return issue to its protests outside of Romney campaign events.
