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HAPPY RETURNS
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Those un-released returns
keep voters a-wondering
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
Mitt Romney has
steadfastly refused to unveil more of his income tax returns.
He’s revealed them for 2010 and an estimate for 2011, but
no more. He’s standing on principle, he says, an unusual
stance for Mitt.
Romney is not usually steadfast about anything except ambition,
figuring whatever sells today in the political world is the way
to go.
Except it’s not selling. If he doesn’t reveal additional
income tax returns, he’s handing Barack Obama a Louisville
Slugger that the president can use to bludgeon him mercilessly
between now and November.
It’s become almost routine for presidential
candidates to make public their income tax returns. Richard Nixon,
not the most forthcoming of presidents, did. So did George W.
Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. George Romney, Mitt’s
father, did when he ran for president. John Edwards let it all
hang out. Not Mitt. Not so far.
There is, as you might expect, all kinds of speculation about
Mitt’s motives. He says it’s a matter of privacy. Scarcely
anyone believes him. The preferred theory, especially among Democrats,
is that Romney has something deep, dark, and sinister to hide,
and that’s why he won’t release the returns.
Conservative columnist George Will theorizes that Romney and
his advisors are making a calculation that goes as follows: 1.
Not releasing the returns hurts Mitt politically. 2. There’s
something in the returns that, if revealed, would hurt him worse.
3. So suck it up and don’t release.
Scott Fitzgerald famously told us in "The Great Gatsby"
that “the rich are different than you and I.” That,
I submit, is what Romney’s reluctance is all about. It’s
not that there is anything in there saying that Romney carried
on a 15-year affair with a Muslim communist who made bombs whenever
there was a spare moment. It’s just that the returns may
reveal a different world than than the one most of us know
-- the world of the super-rich.
Romney in the past has exhibited a politically unfortunate tendency
to say things that mark him as apart from the world of Joe Sixpack,
innocently remarking that his wife has two Cadillacs, and that
he is friends with NASCAR owners, and proposing a $10,000 bet
with Texas Governor Rick Perry during one of the Republican debates.
Romney, bless his heart, saw nothing untoward about any of those
actions. Multiple
Cadillacs, $10,000 bets and even an elevator in the garage to
move cars around are unremarkable parts of his world. What’s
the problem?
So, I’ll bet the additional Romney tax returns, if they
ever see the light of day, will not contain a smoking gun. Rather,
they will reveal a series of complicated tax dodges, arcane financial
moves and use of accepted practices among the super-rich that
are foreign to the 99 percent. Nothing illegal, just different
from what most of us are concerned about. The danger to the Romney
campaign is that such ordinary-to-the-rich practices will further
emphasize his remoteness from the daily concerns of the middle
class.
To a candidate in a tight race -- especially a rich Republican
candidate -- that’s a tough problem. You may be sure that
if the returns are made public, Team Obama within minutes will
have a crew of researchers going over every word and number,
waiting to pounce on something that gives any promise of being
made into a campaign Whoop and Holler. Do you suppose they may
find that Mitt paid a lower percentage of his income than, say,
Warren Buffet’s secretary? Wouldn’t that be likely
to set off a storm of gleeful pseudo-outrage among the Democrats?
So Mitt is on the horns of a political dilemma. Keep the returns
secret, and suffer the slings and arrows of a daily Obama barrage.
Reveal the returns, and get blasted as a remote multi-millionaire
scarcely qualified to empathize with Middle America.
It’s enough to make a grown man weep. Maybe Mitt can comfort
himself
by buying another Cadillac.
©2012 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted July 30, 2012.
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