Let’s just say he had to find a word his base could relate to.
Do you have a cite? I’m curious and not snarky on this point. Not that it has anything to do with standard practice of Presidential candidates and transparency. And for that matter, I would expect Senate candidates to also release at least a decade of returns…
I don’t know whether Reid has or not, but I do know that Congressmen only have to release financial disclosure forms, and these forms only list a range of numbers for their income and investments, not exact figures as tax returns do.
I wonder if maybe didn’t report sales tax he owed for online purchases he made? That would be huge!! (yes, I’m kidding).
I thought congressmen had to file financial disclosure forms. Reid has been in the Senate since forever, so it is somewhat unlikely for there to be anything interesting in his forms that the disclosure forms wouldn’t already describe.
The guy is a professor of tax law, so I think he probably knows a little about it.
The IRS clearly can’t say anything, and they can’t even do anything unless they would decide to prosecute, which would be seen as political. Do you have other suggestions about what Romney is hiding? I don’t buy that his tax rate was too low as being worth stonewalling. That would blow over. If he participated in the tax amnesty he is legal now (but why not release 2009?) but didn’t file correctly.
The writer claimed that the rich had figured out that the IRS didn’t value property transfers (which I believe since that would be expensive) so this seems pretty plausible.
If I were the Dems, I’d have something really juicy stored up for the actual campaign. It is too early now to do anything except stoke the fires.
Well, it does seem financial disclosure needs to be stepped up given the Congressional insider trading scandal.
Financial disclosure forms do already reveal however, that Congressmen are the greatest investors in the world, putting Buffett and Peter Lynch to shame:
What Ziobrowski and his co-authors found was that during the period studied, US Senators’ stock portfolios annually outperformed the market by 12%. Over the same period, US households annually underperformed the market by 1.4%.
“These results,” they concluded, “suggest that Senators knew appropriate times to both buy and sell their common stocks.”
Romney actually did say “put up or shut up.” – Nothing like begging for another 100+ blog articles on this topic, just to jump on the “hey Romney, put up or shut up” band wagon.
Now, I’m waiting for Romney to announce that he’s picked his VP, but he won’t announce who it is unless and until he’s actually elected.
It could be “truthy”. A lie in that Reid doesn’t actually have a source, but true in that the accusation is true despite Reid not being in a position to actually know.
I believe the term “truthy” originated with the Bush National Guard forgery scandal
(a) this is what happens when everyone you talk to is over 65. You start using terms that young people haven’t become familiar with yet. It’s kind of the same as referencing Russia by the name Soviet Union or talking about needing a new needle for your record player.
(b) I think this could be a reference to the fact that Democrats might be growing a spine about letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire in Jan 2013.
The Romney campaign has been very adamant that it is untrue that he paid nothing. My guess is that he actually paid some ridiculously nominal amount some years, say under $100, that would end up being even worse than paying nothing; sort of like leaving a quarter for a tip.
Regardless, this has October surprise written all over it.
Isn’t there a recurring mantra here on the Dope that the person making the extraordinary claim has the burden to prove it?
If Reid wants to make allegations it is up to him to back them up. Two independent sources is the usual standard in journalism, isn’t it?
If Romney puts up, Reid will shut up. Nice to see a Democrat acting like politics is a contact sport, I’m tired of Dems bringing spoons to a gunfight.
I’m not aware that Harry Reid is a Doper, or a journalist. He’s a politician, like Romney pretends to be, and Romney can shut him up by releasing his tax returns. He only has to release 1 year, or just 1 line from 1 year, to prove that he paid some income taxes. And the fact that Romney refuses to release his returns makes his claim that he did pay taxes extraordinary. It’s very easy for me to prove I paid income taxes in the past 10 years. I would think it would be easy for anyone who did pay taxes in the past 10 years.
Reid’s not a journalist, he’s just the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. It’s not like people in that kind of position are expected to conduct themselves responsibly. 
Reid is making the claim. Romney has released his 2010 return or an estimate, and he says he’ll release the 2011 return in October. This is an argument about what he’ll release from other years, particularly the '99-'02 period.
Could be that Reid is telling the truth, too.
After all, if Mitt did indeed manage not to pay any taxes while running Bain, can’t you just see him boasting to his investors (his peers, the people he wanted to impress, folks who he’d assume would also want to dodge all possible taxes) about how shrewd he was? This is, after all, the guy who stood front and center in the group photo stuffed with (high denomination?) dollar bills.
And if it is true, and with even some Republicans calling for the returns to be released, well…
Grab me some more popcorn!
There’s a pretty good argument to the effect that he should suspend his presidential campaign and focus on making sure the joker doesn’t escape, then.
I think it’s a verbose way to call the economic plan short sighted. Progressive myopia affects the sclera, which may be the connection. Otherwise, I have no clue. The other explanations that come to mind don’t seem as plausible (that it is unresponsive, where ossified would be better, or that it is only recently becoming coherent, which is too much of a stretch).
Or better yet, based on what we’re learning about Mitt’s relationship with the truth, he lied to his peers about not owing any taxes. Which would make both sides of this story true!
You want Harry Reid to release Mitt Romney’s tax returns?
He wants Reid to substantiate the allegation.