Mitt Romney wasn't keen on releasing tax returns back in 2002 either. In a video, dug up by the folks at Buzzfeed, Romney said he regretted opening the tax return can of worms when he ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994 for a Senate seat.
"Senator Kennedy, when I was running against him I said, 'Boy you gotta release those income tax returns,' and he said, 'No I value my privacy,'" Romney said in the '02 Massachusetts gubernatorial debate. "And I think he was right and I was wrong. As result I do share his view on this. I'm not going to release my income tax returns."
Despite calls from leaders in both parties to come clean with his full tax history, the Republican candidate has only released docs for 2010 — breaking the trend his own dad, George Romney, started by releasing 12 years of records when he ran for president in 1968. Romney says he plans to put out one more return before the November election.
Today, Romney remained steadfast in his decision and brought up Sen. John Kerry’s wife again, just like he did in the 2002 debate video.
"John McCain ran for president and released two years of tax returns. John Kerry ran for president, you know, his wife who has hundreds of millions of dollars — she never released her tax returns," Romney said Monday on Fox and Friends. "Somehow this wasn't an issue. The Obama people keep wanting more and more and more, more things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try and make a mountain out of and to distort and be dishonest about."
Financial disclosure forms don't necessarily paint a comprehensive picture of a candidate's financial situation, but the Romney campaign has denied they have something to hide.
Former White House chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel argued Romney's campaign lack of transparency has been a conscious political gamble.
"The Romney campaign isn't stupid. They have decided it is better to get attacked on lack of transparency, lack of accountability to the American people versus telling you what's in those taxes," said Emanuel.
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I can not believe this guy Mitt. You guys are right he has made lots of money. We sure do not want someone as president that understand business. For comedy I watch Larry and Mo the two stooges ( lawrence and ED)
Look at how he made his money.
He would buy companies with just a few million down and the rest in borrowed debt. He then paid off himself and Bain and let the companies go bankrupt. The companies are unable to pay medical care or pensions because of the money sent to Bain, so the society is forced to bear the burden. For example medical care, in the form of higher medical premiums because the workers show up at emergency rooms without medical insurance and so we pay for their care.
Take a looks at the facts.
Actually, what Bain did is corporate socialism, privatizing profits and socializing the losses. Same thing as Wall Street meltdown. The game is rigged. These guys rip off companies and leave society to clean up the mess.
If you think that is capitalism, then no thank you.
There was no trend set by George Romney, who did not win the nomination of his party, and therefore was never a presidential candidate. John McCain released two years of tax returns as the Republican candidate in 2008, and that seemed fine with the media So did John Kerry as the Democrat Party challenger to the incumbant George Bush in 2004. No 12 years of tax returns expected from those candidates. So really, what is this all about hounding Romney night and day on this nonsense issue?
It is a much more critical need to discuss the looming fiscal cliff ahead of us of the massive hit our teetering fragile economy will take if all the Bush/Obama tax cuts aren't extended or made permanent, and a way found to pay for the majority of the $1.2 trillion dollars in mandatory cuts to discretionary social spending and defense spending isn't found by bi-partisan solutions on entitlement reforms and the elimination of waste, and graft, and duplication in the Federal annual spending. A hit like that will precipitate another recession. As James Carville chastised Clinton in 1992, "It's the economy, Stupid." And not the economy in 1999 or 2002, when Romney was on a leave of absence from the very successful and respected private investment firm Bain Capital, and working without a salary to rescue the waste, graft, and corruption plagued Winter Olympics, but the economy of 2012 and afterward that is important.
Keith I learned in a class in Group Method that at times the best thing to do is not to respond to what the other person says. The teacher said, "At times you need to treat the other person like a shadow." He meant that you treat the other persons as if he almost does not exist because when you respond you merely call attention to what the other person wants you to talk about. By responding every time the other persons says something, the other person is controlling the situation. My point is this: Would it not be better if Romney did not respond to Obama's accusation? Instead of responding to what Obama says, would it not be better for Romney to talk only about what he wants to talk about such as the economy. As long as Romney responds to Obama's attack, it gives Romney less time to talk about the economy. My suggestion to Romney is this: Talk about what you want to talk about and not respond every time Obama opens his mouth.
I sincerely am trying to say what is best for Romney.
Mr. O'Donnell,
On tonight's (July 16) show, you criticized candidate Romney because Team USA wore uniforms made in Burma and/or China during the 2000 Summer Olympics. I am no fan of Mr. Romney, but this criticism is not correct. Romney's job was to run the Olympics, but he was not in charge of Team USA. Whoever decided what uniforms Team USA would wear during the opening and closing ceremonies and during the actual competition, as well as where those uniforms would be made, that person did not report directly or indirectly to Mr. Romney. The administration of Team USA and the administration of the Olympics were two completely different entities.
It's pretty simple, Kennedy was running on being an economic wunderkind, and of course Kerry's wife wasn't running at all. Romney knows he's done a done of damage to the US economy and he hopes we don't find out. FWIW, one needs to remember that Bain was dual-interest company...offering venture capital as well as simply tearing apart businesses and picking the carcasses. One can easily argue that both are problematic...neither is "being a businessman."
In your economic ignorance, you seem to confuse venture capatalist and turnaround private equity investment with "vulture" capitalism, Sweet Equity. Bain Capital's 85% success rate in doing the former contributed to making it the largest and most respected of turnaround private equity firms, which was why pension funds and endowment fund managers from all around the country invested in the firm's risky takeover and buy in targeted companies, often in problematic industries.
The score of Democrat Party politicians and supporters from Mayor Cory Booker and Gov Ed Randell to Obama Car Czar Steve Ratner and General and National Security Advisor Colin Powell all came out six weeks ago and chastised the Obama Campaign at the beginning of this sorry series of attack with falsehoods as they knew the message was off base. But the media loves a fight...so it get's amplified as a desperate Obama campaign seeks something....anything...to deflect from the President's failings of policy and the sorry state of our slumping economy, as is seen in the terrible job numbers of the past 4 months especially continuing and the last quarters slumping retail sales (our economy is 70% consumer driven, you know). The poor economic reports are very ominous signs heading into the period of the two major Party's conventions, and the beginning of the true Presidential campaign after Labor Day, which won't be a day for much celebrating this year under this failed administration.
On last night's show, Lawrence O'Donnell was discussing Romney's refusal to release any tax returns prior to 2010. Like most discussions on this subject, , there was some speculation about what Romney is hiding. In a question he put to one of his guests, Lawrence suggested the possibility that Romney's donations to the Mormon church might be in excess of the taxes he paid to the country, implying that Romney could sustain severe political damage if that were true. BUT, what if Romney's returns showed that he hasn't been complying fully with the tithing requirements of the Mormon church? What political damage would he suffer,and how severely impacted would his fundraising within the Mormon community be, if this were true?
What part of the word BIGOTRY did you and Little Lying Larry think does not apply to your concerns with Mr. Romney's religion, CC Dem?
There can be no doubt that Romney's integrity is doubtful at the minimum. I suspect he won't release tax returns because this will raise a plethora of questions and some I suspect, will infringe on legality.
What jumps out at me is that he claimed to be a MA resident to satisfy the MA gubernatorial requirements (Says he was living in his son's basement... Really? A millionaire living in his son's basement!). At the same time, he claims not to have been involved in anyway, shape, or form with the day-to-day operations of Bain which I believe is located in MA. Day-to-day??? The question is not about day-to-day management of Bain. It is who calls the shots... Who made the decisions that bankrupted AMERICAN companies, raided their pensions, left ppl in the US unemployed, and then claimed bankruptcy leaving the US taxpayer on the hook? No mystery there. You cannot simultaneously claim no involvement in a company where you are the sole owner, stockholder, president, and drawing a 6 figure income! That flys in the face of common sense.
It also appears to me that he misrepresented where he lived in order to be eligible for MA governor. This is a crime by itself and I wonder what else those returns would yield... It's called "Pay dirt". I hope somebody investigates this angle deeper. If he did lie about his residence, wasn't he not eligible to run for MA gov? Either way, this man has not the slightest indication of integrity and I would never vote for him even if he does manage to "slip" this noose of his own doing.
All these argumens were tried by the Democrat Party in 2002 when Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts, and the largely Democrat Party registered voter state didn't believe a word of those accusations, and voted this turn around specialist businessman from the highly respected and very favorable private equity investment firm into office as Governor of their state to turn that one around. And he did, timming the $2.6 billion deficit that free spending Democrat Party controlled state legilature had run up (and leaving his successor with a rainy day fund), removing the onerous surtax on the states Income tax (something was that temporarily enacted under Dukakis (that sorry Masssachusetts governor from the Democrat Party that went on to be their Presidential candidate in 1988), and left a rainy day fund for his successor. And under Romney's initiatives, including his Educational Policy Reforms for the State, and his reduction of taxes and hamstringing regulations, he was able to attract businessess that had previously been leaving Massachusetts back into the state, taking that State from 51st in the nation (counting Washington, D.C) in job growth to 30th when he left office, with over 50,000 new job opportunities added in the state in just 3 and 1/2 years.
Now that's the kind of leadership we sorely need in this economically and fiscally policy troubled nation. Certainly not the tax, borrow, and spend and regulate approach of the present economic illiterate resident of the White House (and I use that latter term hesitatingly, as he has been on junkets campaigning for reelection and fund raising (as he had in 2008 when he CLUELESSLY stated "I've been in...what...fifty seven (57?) states now, and have another one to go) for the last year than he has in the White House and the Oval Office doing his job. LOL!
Govenor Romney should put all these rumors to rest and just release his certified, fulll form, worth certificates. Then the rumors will be fact.