Let Mitt Tell You How It Will Be (Will Romney Disclose?)

I voted for hen fap

A non-release release would be where he invites a few supposedly impartial third parties, journalists most likely, to look over his returns. I read somebody suggest this earlier as a way he could wiggle around the problem--politicians have done this in other contexts.

I'd be very surprised if he releases them at this point.

I mean if what's in them isn't so bad that you can ultimately release and not have it be worse than not releasing them why continue this pantomine for so long?

The New Republic tried to figure that out yesterday--many have.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105974/unified-theory-romney-tax-stubbornness

will get that poll together soon about when Obama will disclose his kill list, as unimportant as that is.

yeah i can't believe Obama got elected without even talking about whether he'd murdered anybody

I think it'll be 5-9 (and fall on his sword) or nothing, but I can't predict between those two.

i heard a great conspiracy theory that he's holding back his records bc they would indicate how little he has tithed compared to how much he has made and it would burn him with the mormon church. i have no idea if not paying exactly 10% in tithes is such a huge deal for the church (i don't think a similar problem would have burned joe lieberman w/ his synagogue, but different religions have different standards), but it would explain exactly what would be so dangerous on the tax forms that it would be worth torpedoing his presidential ambitions.

some dude, you're kind of a moron.

Somebody just started a thread on professional bowling in the 1960s, Morbius--you'd better get over there quick and tell them about Obama's kill list.

I heard Earl Anthony delivered troop movement intel to the NVA during a USO tour in '68, sealed in the thumbhole of a bowling ball.

clemenza, you really should move here, your fascination with trivia and inability to see links between MSM "demands" that matter and those that don't is deeply American.

As I've said before, I think that claiming special knowledge about what does and doesn't matter is extremely short-sighted. I know I quote Bill James way too often, but I'd suggest you read the section on the Rosenbergs in Popular Crime. Besides which, if there's a presidential election, and the tax returns of one of the candidates are, whether they should be or not, an issue, then of course they matter.

not when the election doesn't.

As you've said once or twice. And there are threads for that, and for Obama's kill list. This one's about Romney's taxes. It is possible to talk about this one thing without talking about the other.

Romney's taxes are of no fucking importance in the grand scheme of things except as a chesspiece in this fraudulent process.

i disagree. under the assumption that this election matters, i think the candidate's tax records are incredibly important and very telling. when i worked full-time for an actual newsfinding + publishing organization, i spent so much time going over any kind of financial disclosure records (re donations, taxes, etc). very useful info imho.

some dude, you're kind of a moron.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Friday, August 10, 2012 9:52 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

i wasn't defending mitt, and i'm not a mormon!

They are a nice chesspiece.

Obama doesn't even want to release the memos authorizing killing Americans (in Yemen) let alone a kill list.

i heard a great conspiracy theory that he's holding back his records bc they would indicate how little he has tithed compared to how much he has made and it would burn him with the mormon church.

I fucking love this theory Mordy. it's like quasi-Shakespearean only with tax returns & Mormons

i don't think the huge problem of the returns is that people are fascinated by them, & so they'll be the single key to his downfall, just that mitt's attitude toward them is so unlikely, & it shows him in an unappealing light. it's impossible to buy that the stipulations regarding candidates' financial histories would be the single thing that he was genuinely sticking to a principle over, & he digs himself in holes by saying there is no legal requirement to release any so i won't although i have released two extra years though i wasn't required so shut up. the idea that he couldn't perform the same cost-benefit analysis that he's used previously, prior to turning around on climate change or abortion or w/e else, beggars belief. i don't think he's going to release them, because surely he would have by now, being a chronic swiveller, & he's probably gone so far in defending them that he'll just be damaging the credibility of his own word.

Standing your ground can often be turned into political advantage--Clinton's obstinacy during Starr/Lewinsky worked, because enough people had decided that he was absolutely right in trying to keep that part of his life off-limits, no matter how unseemly. That's not going to work for Romney. In that CNN poll, even 30% of Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Party people want him to release.

how many people wanted clinton to release

get it

I GET IT

He really got blindsided by this--there's just no way he could have seen it coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goOuKtuvcrE

That "Maybe" was one of the best moments in any debate.

steven fucking clinton

i totally understood his reluctance to release anything during primary season - tithing to mormon church openly too bold for a guy clearly terrified of his party's base - but now that he's got the nod it's somewhat mystifying, even if he didn't pay income taxes for ten years i don't think that hurts him as much as nondisclosure, i can't imagine that could be in there that the gop couldn't spin away as totally fine and normal or even if, worst case scenario here for mittens, he did cheat on his taxes that they couldn't spin into a discussion of how our tax code punishes success and job creators, etc. and at this point he's painted himself into a corner somewhat right - releasing them now is giving into obama, plays into 'wimp' factor, etc. i still worry there might be some rope-a-dope at work here but increasingly i doubt the romney campaigns ability to employ that kind of strategic thinking.

xpost Yeah, that "maybe" was like a 10/10 on the smarm scale.

Mitt should just reveal all his cheats and spin it into "this is what the IRS forces us to do to avoid their stupid rules!" or "I'm a freedom fighter up against one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, if you vote for me I'll fight to make sure you aren't forced to face down these same nefarious forces!"

Or maybe he can just change the subject. "Hey, did you know my wife's tax-exempt horse competed in the Olympics. The Olympics! How 'bout those Olympics? USA! USA!"

it's preceded by an emotionally affecting slow-zoom, too, like you can hear the crowd fade out & his heartbeat quicken & his eyes begin to water but then he just zips out of it with MAYBE, AHA HA, HA
xp

And the contemptuous blink at the hooting audience directly after, or the way he seems to be frozen in fear as King sets up the question--the whole segment is brutal.

I threw out the rope-a-dope theory earlier, but after that overseas trip, I abandoned any notions of three-dimensional chess for something closer to snakes and ladders.

Mitt is playing political Candyland

or the way he seems to be frozen in fear as King sets up the question

yeah i mean this is actually kinda moving!, because it's the guy cowering in the shadow of his father's powerful example. & he goes in such a different direction from recognising that dynamic.

lol accidentally listened to fifteen minutes of laura ingraham last night, pretty near panic mode, said you couldn't play rope-a-dope in a knife fight. victor davis hanson was on also - she kept referring to him as 'vdh' which sounds like some sort of genital ointment - i don't think thirty seconds went by w/o vdh using the phrase 'the chicago way'.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/was-harry-reid-right.html

basically quotes dailykos who suggests reid's source was jon huntsman sr.

harry reid is nuts and could be lying but as the cops say in crime novels i "like" hunstman sr as the perp

that would be funny as hell

a source of mine who's a successful retired entrepreneur - he conducted business very differently than romney/bain btw - says he's heard that mitt is actually worth $1 billion and won't disclose because his tax dodges and offshore holding are far more byzantine and extensive than we think

the problem w/ a poll like 'should mitt release his returns' is that it asks a pretty easy and sorta leading q. "I'm on a phone" so I can't look at that link buy I imagine they didn't ask the more relevant q which is "does his refusal make you significantly less likely to vote for him?"

but I

victor davis hanson was on also - she kept referring to him as 'vdh' which sounds like some sort of genital ointment

no that would be k-lo

all mormons hate taxes ftr

a source of mine who's a successful retired entrepreneur - he conducted business very differently than romney/bain btw - says he's heard that mitt is actually worth $1 billion and won't disclose because his tax dodges and offshore holding are far more byzantine and extensive than we think

― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Friday, August 10, 2012 11:46 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this would not surprise me

Voted non-release release. At the very least he can release returns showing how many taxes he paid in offshore accounts, yachts, upkeep of the dressage horse, houses taxes, etc. and say "Look at all the money i paid!" Even if it's not income taxes it will be enough to justify saying "He paid taxes!" and the discourse will devolve into a question of semantics. It'll do that anyways.

they didn't ask the more relevant q which is "does his refusal make you significantly less likely to vote for him?"

I may have garbled my explanation at the top, but I do think that flat-out refusal could be a barrier for a small sliver of (the supposedly small sliver of) undecideds, which could matter in a close election. I couldn't italicize "condition" in the original post, but what I meant was, it's like this invisible hurdle along the way that probably won't effect much once it's addressed--he clears, he stumbles, whatever--but that he can't ignore altogether. I don't think so, anyway.

I think it matters how things play out, if this sticks around for more slow news cycles and the dems keep hammering it, could actually be 'a thing'. poorly constructed polls are just a pet peeve tho, don't really disagree w/ you.

Is there any kind of precedent for this that might be instructive? The candidate, that is--Kerry's wife doesn't count. For as long as I've been following presidential elections, I don't remember non-compliance on releasing returns ever being an issue, not even with the likes of Perot or Forbes. Maybe I'm forgetting someone.

well the taxes matter because they're a big part of the picture of who he is and the $ thing bothers people more today than it would have 10 or 20 years ago. kerry and mccain both were v rich but it wasn't what defined them.

That's the feint that someone detected a week or two ago--that he's always careful to say "taxes" rather than "income taxes." I don't know your tax system, but I gather it's a meaningful distinction. And if he's still sticking to that wording, then probably he paid very little in income taxes.

Mass sales tax is 6.25%

*calculates sales tax on 15,000 cases of Diet Caffeine-Free Pepsi*

so Politifact will rate this "false", right? since Romney's not actually producing any documentation to back up his 13% claim.

"But I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that."

So Romney did bring in an impartial third-party to look over his returns after all: Romney.

"I paid a 13% tax rate ... on my wife's cookie taxes. For every cookie I eat, I have to put $13 dollars in a jar. That's just how our family works. At the end of the year we add up the contents of the jar and spend it on a cookout for our help. Well, catering a party for the help. Something else always comes up for us. Church, Job creating, that sort of thing."

by way of comparison: Obama (who's considerably less wealthy than Romney but obviously still rich) paid 20.5% tax rate for his 2011 tax return

boom

this is also totally emblematic of what a shitty candidate Romney is - instead of letting the tax return issue die and trying to shape a new narrative in the post-Ryan-selection phase of the campaign, he opens his big dumb mouth and puts the issue front and center all over again less than a week after his VP selection. such a moron.

"will you please stop shooting at me if I give you more ammunition?"

If our presumptive GOP nominee had brains, I'd think he was waiting as far as possible into election season to release the whole thing knowing that reporters probably won't finish deciphering those byzantine attempts to hide his income until November anyway.

Some enterprising reporter would get his editor to ok funds for hiring a first class billionaire's CPA, so they could jump the competition in reporting on Willard's venality and persiflage.

Also, Obama actually earned a living by writing books and stuff to get to his $1.7 mil last year or whatever. Mitt is mostly coasting off interest on his vast array of investments to get to his $20 mil a year.

Paul Ryan net worth: $4.5 mil.
Obama net worth: $11.8 mil
Biden net worth: supposedly between negative $258,970 (!!!) and $718,994
Romney net worth: $250 mil

One of these guys is not like the other. Well, two (looking at you, Biden)

Bidden lives entirely off of credit cards iirc

lol Biden

Biden lives on tacos and O'Douls.

Hell, Biden looks like he lives on recycling O'Douls bottles.

Oh, shit, poor Biden: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/whs/awm/Recycling/Pages/BottleBill.aspx

Bidden lives entirely off of credit cards iirc

how ironic that he's from delaware

yeah that was the joke

http://bolt3.com/forum/topics/open-letter-to-joe-bidden

Okay okay okay, but this is still totally not any worse than his existing tax returns, right? Unless he's been spending two months researching the exactly correct way of phrasing this that disguises a low rate of tax without causing the IRS to loudly contradict him?

god guys how many threads do we need

He's been very cagey about the taxes he's paid on those back returns. He's never given them a title: income taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, capital gains taxes, etc.

xpost One thread per $75 mil he's worth?

ha!

lol

this guy is doing a really poor job of towing a line between trying to finish this story, so making minute concessions & offering new phrasings & reiterating on demand shit he's already said, & sticking to his immutable will to not actually disclose anything. it's so weird to be simultaneously saying "we won't be releasing anything else, we're within the limits" & then also feigning surprise that it's a big deal & trying to put it in the context of like ... "wait look over there ... AT AMERICA".

his most recent tax rates had already come out as 13%, so presumably the calculation was that submitting this one wasn't gonna be much worse; the idea that he could brush it off w/this is crazy though.

“I don’t believe it for a minute, by the way.”
Lol this is a weird and sorta suspicious thing to say when you're responding to personal accusations

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

he opens his big dumb mouth and puts the issue front and center all over again less than a week after his VP selection. such a moron

He knew this poll was closing today--last-minute bid to draw some 10+ votes, didn't work out at all.

http://davidsimon.com/mitt-romney-paid-taxes-at-a-rate-of-at-least-13-percent-and-hes-proud-to-say-so/

Dreher's response.

Increasingly encountering the ridiculous talking point that Romney's income was already taxed before he even got it, when the companies he was invested in were taxed.

pffft my money's taxed when it's printed

Yeah well he'll have to stop printing his money at some point as well.

he'll accept it in the form of a pre-loaded credit card

Pretty disciplined response from Romney--maybe they're learning.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/obama-camp-to-romney-lets-make-a-deal-on-tax-returns.php?ref=fpb

idk man i don't think it's like a genuine moment just happened between them or someone got the upper hand - it's just a useful way for the DNC to bump it into the headlines & the usual reflex of the gop to say 'what about america'

Romney doesn't understand that as long as this "issue" is in the news cycle, it's bad for them. they should be either releasing them (which they clearly don't want to do because there's bad shit in there) or burying it/ignoring it/never speaking about it. those are their only two options. they do not grasp this.

Sometimes clever people feel a compulsion to answer back, because *hey* they are clever enough to come up with a really crushing answer, no?

^^^ ILX in a nutshell

one of the pluses of mitt refusing to release his returns is it'll still be an issue during the debates, so obama can elliptically refer to it, talk about tax dodgers, & we'll get to see that face mitt pulls when he's trying to look personable & electable & yet struggling to contain a fiery rage burning up from his stomach to his cold fixed unblinking blue eyes

xp ha

It's all a charade, of course, but, as measured against the standard of ineptitude Romney's demonstrated thus far, I thought "If Governor Romney’s tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for President Obama to discuss them over the next 81 days" was pretty good. I'm not sure that ignoring the DNC letter would do anything to make this go away; the story then becomes "Romney ignores DNC promise to be satisfied with three more years of returns." My guess is that, if they're not going to release anything, they're just hoping the press gets tired of the whole thing. Which they might. So short of actually releasing, I thought their response was about the best they could do.

But yes, it'll come up in the debates for sure, so they're only postponing the inevitable.

Yeah, and he had to talk about it on camera yesterday because he took questions from reporters. When you don't do that, that becomes a news story.

the funny thing is that Mitt can't concoct a reasonable explanation for NOT releasing his tax returns

it's all just "I don't want to and you can't make me!" childish flailing, makes people think he's hiding something

^^^^exactly

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-releases-two-years-of-tax-returns.php?ref=fpa

Things we can now look forward to:

Paul Ryan praises the lakes of Wisconsin.
Paul Ryan talks about how he loves laying off people.
Paul Ryan jets up to Toronto, expresses concern about how the upcoming 100th Grey Cup is being handled.
Paul Ryan starts to laugh in an odd, staccato manner: ha ha ha ha.