Things that matter?
You mean like Obama not wanting soldiers to vote, and Obama saying that business owners contributed nothing to the success of their businesses? Honest, lofty, MATTERING things like that?
Are you seriously asserting that a man who will stoop to crap like that … aw, fuck it, there is no good option here. If you’re not serious, you’re wasting everybody’s time, and if you are, then I’m wasting my time.
Might want to fact check before going ape on an internet forum…
And very complex tax shelters. Things that you set up for no reason than to legally avoid paying taxes - and which you need to be wealthy to set up and make work. These things usually aren’t features of the tax code themselves as much as they are loopholes that its legal to take advantage of.
But legal and ethical are two different things. And perception in politics counts for a lot.
Both this and the post you responded to are maybe a little ambiguous…are you castigating TonySinclair for spreading lies about Obama (not wanting soldiers to vote, etc)? Because I think that was his point…that ROMNEY is blatantly lying about Obama in his ads.
Correct. Evidently I’m too subtle when I go ape.
Hokay. Maybe he’d like to discuss his guy’s tax plan…
Recently, the Romney campaign requested that the Virginia State Board of Elections investigate whether a voter registration group broke state law when it sent out partially completed registration forms to potential voters. The Board told the group to end the practice, but they declined to investigate because it wasn’t clear that any laws were broken. The Romney campaign had this response (emphasis mine):
Here, Romney’s campaign has no trouble hypocritically insisting that someone else conform to the spirit of the law. But when it comes to his taxes, Romney’s response is the strictly technical “I don’t pay more than are legally due.” And considering that the man stashes ~$100 million in an off-shore IRA as part of his tax strategy–an unusual practive that doesn’t seem to jibe with the “spirit” of laws that enacted individual retirement accounts–I think it’s pretty clear that in Romney’s world “spirit” is for chumps if real money is involved.
The tax code isn’t a significant issue?
Maybe he’ll release them now that it has been learned that 40% of the initial money for Bain came from questionable Central American sources.
Nobody is asking him to apologize. Plus, who gets to decide what matters, Romney? Because that is arrogance.
I’m about as anti-Romney as it’s possible to be, but unless these guys were active participants in the formation of Bain, I don’t see this as swaying many people. That may be due to my own ignorance of how carefully companies are supposed to check out investors, but I don’t think I’m any more ignorant than the average Romney supporter.
While agree one thing like this isn’t much, it still is part of a broader narrative of Romney that is being developed. That’s the thing, it isn’t about finding the smoking gun, it is about characterizing Romney as a privileged financier who lives in a moneyed world that 99.9% of Americans have no idea how it works, how it is supposed to help them, or how that makes Romney a reasonable choice for President given he is clueless about the average Americans struggles.
Yea, I agree. I’m not a fan of these “six degrees of separation” games people play during campaign season. The accusation is that a guy running a death squad got money from a guy who was a family member of another guy who was one of many Latin American investors in Bain. I suspect you can find some similar story connecting anyone whose been reasonably prominent in politics or business to someone unsavoury.
(plus, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Romney’s tax returns. I doubt even the 1% get to claim “helped South American death squads invest their money” deduction)
The thing is, every recent presidential nominee has released their tax returns. If they were all willing to face having “every deduction scrutinized”, why isn’t Romney?
Obviously his political opponents will give everything he’s done the most negative spin possible, but this is always true for both candidates. It seems to me Romney must think his tax return is, at the very least, unusually susceptible to negative spin.
Yes, it’s a case of special pleading–“I, unlike any other candidate releasing his tax returns, am reasonably concerned that they contain materials that my opponents could conceivably ask difficult and embarrassing questions about, so, unlike any other candidate, I am refusing to let these perfectly innocuous tax returns be entered into the public record. Despite the fact that I have hounded my opponent in a previous race to make his tax returns public, I am refusing to do so now, although mine are perfectly legal and I’m proud of what I have written on them.”
Can you imagine the non-stop screeching we’d hear from the various Fox ‘News’ sources if it were Obama hiding his tax returns? I almost wish it were that way around; the entertainment value alone would be worth it.
Romney can help you avoid taxes like a boss.
Mormons have this thing about avoiding the appearance of evil. In other words, as an adult in a free country, a Mormon is entirely within their rights to walk into a bar. However, they are encouraged not to because being seen doing so suggests the appearance of evil.
Romney’s evasiveness about his tax returns may be nothing more than a stubborn case of “it’s none of your goddamn business”. However, it has an appearance of evil to it. What are you doing walking into that tax shelter like you own the place, Mr. Romney? Care to reassure your Sunday School class that you’re not sinning?
I suggest flinging of additional poo. 
It didn’t seem to bother his dad.
Okay, if there is the assumption that there is no smoking gun, there is no need to examine all those years of records. If it is, in fact, about “characterizing Romney as a privileged financier who lives in a moneyed world that 99.9% of Americans have no idea how it works”, I think we already have near universal agreement. Right?