Really? That seems rather low. The evangelical churches I belonged to back in my religious days were pretty solid on the 10% thing if you had the means. I’m quite surprised that Catholics don’t expect the same.
And back to the OP - could Romney have been more flustered and wavering about the tax returns at tonight’s debate? I have the feeling there is something more than just the 15% issue in there. Either he’s using carried interest or doing some major tax avoidance. That or it’s the Mormon issue… but surely everybody knows that he gives to his church. Maybe it’s just the magnitude of the donation that is shocking?
Maybe he’s flustered because he truly does not want to release them - it is, after all, something that most people think of as private information.
Which is still no excuse for why he hasn’t prepared for this after six years of continuously running for president, but does make him just a bit more human, if true.
He’s only promised to release his most recent tax returns. As others have speculated, there may be a time bomb in previous years. It’ll be a big explosion if it turns out there was a year when he made a six-figure income and was able to pay no taxes on it.
If it’s too much trouble to release this year’s returns, he could just release some previous year’s returns pretty quickly and easily.
But my money says he won’t.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember from my Catholic days that “tithing” was viewed as a very Protestant thing, and something Catholics looked down on. Or at least looked askance at. Giving was encouraged, but not so arithmetically proscribed.
My parish suggests “one hour for God” per week, i.e. one hour’s wages, before taxes. God gets about 20 minutes out of me, but He hasn’t got my bills, either.
Proof that God does not like taxes, else he’d settle for after tax income. 
Former catholic. Hadn’t heard of the idea of tithing in any of the half dozen churches I’ve been a member of
They make up for it in volume.
He said he’d release more then one year during the debate, but it was part of a flustered word-spew, so I’m not sure if it really counted as a “promise”.
In anycase, its sort of bizarre he hasn’t planned for this. It seems that every recent Prez has released at least a few years worth of returns, but its obvious team-Romney didn’t think out how they’d respond to being requested to do the same.
Yes, that’s the puzzling part. He’s been running for president for about 8 years now, and he hasn’t, during that time, developed a plan for what to do about his taxes? Something doesn’t seem right…
The Obama camp was not waiting for a break.
In addition to his low tax rate, people are really not going to like it if they see he has given as much or more to the LDS Church than the U.S. Gov’t. That’s why he won’t release anything until the primaries are done and he has the nomination. As long as there are members of more palatable (to the Republican base) Christian denominations still in the field, anything related to Mormonism stays under wraps.
Guys like James Carville are cackling with glee as to how this is shaping up for Democrats. The amount of negative material they have to work with is a gift from Heaven. Whether Obama allows his affiliated groups to use it is the question.
I’m not sure this deserves its own thread, so I’ll ask here:
I didn’t watch the debate last night, but I did see the slew of clips on the morning news shows. What I’m wondering is in regard to what Romney said about being successful. As far as I know, his father was pretty much stinking rich, but he said something along the lines of, “I didn’t inherit anything from my parents; what I have I earned.”
How true is that? Did his parents send him on his way at age 18 with nothing but a request to write if gets work? I find it hard to believe that he didn’t benefit from his wealthy parents.
You really think he wouldn’t be the nominee if it turns out that he gave a lot of money to his church? Hmm.
So… what if he is the nominee and then it turns out he did in fact give a lot of money to his church? Republican voters stay home, or suck it up and vote for him anyway, just to keep Obama from being re-elected?
How much “negative material” is there for Obama to work with, really? I think most Republican voters aren’t ever going to vote for Obama anyway, so the campaign is just going to be a matter of Obama saying to Democrats and independents, “Here’s what I’ve accomplished” and at most “You don’t want to vote for Romney because…” He doesn’t do negative campaigning.
SuperPACs will though, and can’t be controlled (as the Republican candidates have discovered). And an election isn’t won by people who will vote for their candidate regardless - its won by getting the independents and keeping the other side unenthused and at home.
The questions are…will Romney, who the “base” has never been excited about, be able to get enough excitement to not only bring out the vote, but drive the volunteers who make the phone calls? Will Obama be able to motivate his base the way he was able to three years ago? What role will PACs play? Will the independents be receptive to negative ads, or will they balk and those ads backfire? And, of course, dozens of other questions, some current, some which will come up between now and then.
Strange things happen - I’d have never guessed the birth certificate thing would be taken seriously by anyone with two brain cells - but I know intelligent people who think that there is something there.
Since his parents are still alive, he technically hasn’t “inherited” anything from them. That’s not to say that they haven’t set him up in his own cozy lifestyle, with money and property and a nice job.
If it’s the Mormon Church, yes. The Republican base are conservative Christians, and they don’t have warm fuzzies for Mormons. Many Pastors have called it a cult, and the American Family Association’s Brian Fischer has =said it is a “false Religion.” Fischer is a kook, but a kook who has 2,000,000 listeners a day in 37 states.
If the Den SuperPacs want to go there, they can create all sorts of havoc with his Mormon views. There is also his tax returns, his silver-spoon life, and his cash parked in Cayman Island banks, and that’s just the obvious stuff we already know about.
The seems to be some uncertainty about NBC’s debate scheduled for next Monday (Jan 23) in Florida. The uncertainty stems from Mitt Romney not confirming that he will be there. That seems like a strange turn of events. Maybe Romney is really, really not wanting to release those tax records!
It’s more a matter of taking weapons away from the Republicans. It’s like Osama bin Laden being killed - that means the Republican nominee won’t be able to accuse Obama of being soft on national security issues. And if Romney is the nominee, he’s now going to have a much harder going after Obama on the economy because Obama will be able to throw it back at him. He’ll just say that he’s been trying to fix the economy but the Republicans in Congress care more about protecting rich people - like Romney - than they do about fixing the economy.