[Pesqueeb]

Seats are $19.95 but you'll only need the EDGE!


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79365.html?hp=f3


So, what's the end game here? One would think Reid's gotta be fairly confident in his accusations else wise he comes off looking like a MAJOR douche if/when Romney releases tax returns, but on the other hand why won't Romney release them? The talk of course is the Romney hasn't paid his taxes, but my own looney conspiracy plot is the Saint's might find out Romney hasn't been tithing his 10%. That would look pretty damn bad on a Bishop.

 

[Silver]

The end game here is pretty simple: Get the returns released, or let endless speculation about what is in them run rampant.

Lose/lose proposition for Romney. There has to be something in there that is really ugly, or he would have released them a long time ago.

 

[dante]

The end game here is pretty simple: Get the returns released, or let endless speculation about what is in them run rampant.

Lose/lose proposition for Romney. There has to be something in there that is really ugly, or he would have released them a long time ago.

Reid's position is a pretty simple one to take: put out an utterly preposterous statement (that he "heard from someone else") and see if he can goad Romney into releasing his tax returns. If Romney ends up releasing them (doubt it) and he's paid taxes, who honestly will care that Reid forwarded hearsay that ended up not being true? My bet is that Romney's past tax returns include:

1) Not paying *any* taxes in '09. Remember, the economy pooped the bed, the market went from 14k to 6.5k, and all of those losses could *easily* counter any money made that year.
1.a) He had probably paid taxes (quite a bit) previously, but he can't release his '05, '06, '07 and '08 returns and then just omit '09.

2) Really, *really* questionable donations back in the early '00s. Remember, he was pro-choice and pro-gay rights back then, and I'd bet serious money that there's a couple hundred thou in donations to places like Planned Parenthood back in the '00-'03 time frame. He's probably kept his nose clean recently, but back then he was just a liberal Republican aspiring to be governor of one of the most liberal states in the country. This is going to be FAR more damaging to him from the Right than the Left.

3) More "legal but cringe-worthy" write-offs and tax aversion similar to the $75,000 for Rafalca. My guess is that his tax return is about the size of a book, with every legal/quasi-legal option possible taken to reduce his tax returns.

4) Years that made his '10 tax rate of 13.9% look good. My guess is that most of the time his tax rate was far, far, far lower.

5) Amended returns, and true "questionable" aspects like Caymen Islands accounts, Swiss accounts, and when he actually accounted for all of those. Did he file an amended return once the US started cracking down on Swiss bank accounts a couple years ago? Did he have a large pile of "oooops" corrections when he was being vetted by McCain as a VP pick in '08?

My prediction is that he's flat-out not going to release them, period. If he'd wanted to do it, he could have done it the Friday that the Olympics started when about 2% of the American public was following politics, and 98% were griping about how NBC wasn't streaming the opening ceremony live. Americans in general aren't paying attention to politics during the summer, and so for all of the noise and chatter that's going on, issues don't get a ton of traction. However, he's predicted to pick his running mate next week, and going on a 2-week tour leading up to the RNC convention... After that is the DNC convention, and then it's only a couple months to go before the election. It would be *suicide* to release anything that's potentially damaging between now and November. It's all people would talk about, it's all that would be on the news as everyone dug into every little detail, and I'd bet money that at least one of the 5 things I predicted would be in there (if not all of them).

The only question is going to be, how much damage will Obama and the left-leaning SuperPACs do with "What's he hiding" advertising? I can guarantee that that's going to be a constant drum-beat from now through election day, with groups running ads that say something like "Romney has only released one year of his tax returns, which included things such as accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, and a $75,000 writeoff for his horse. Now he won't release any previous returns because he claims that it would be 'used to attack him'. If he's so paranoid about releasing his tax returns, what is he hiding?"

 

[Pesqueeb]

2) Really, *really* questionable donations back in the early '00s. Remember, he was pro-choice and pro-gay rights back then, and I'd bet serious money that there's a couple hundred thou in donations to places like Planned Parenthood back in the '00-'03 time frame. He's probably kept his nose clean recently, but back then he was just a liberal Republican aspiring to be governor of one of the most liberal states in the country. This is going to be FAR more damaging to him from the Right than the Left.

Honest question: Wouldn't his name show up on records of these groups? Be it Planned Parenthood, The Sierra Club or who ever? Whats to stop someone in the know with whatever group that might now be politically damaging to Mittens from "leaking" a document saying Mitt donated xxxxxxxx in 2000-2003?

 

[dante]

Honest question: Wouldn't his name show up on records of these groups? Be it Planned Parenthood, The Sierra Club or who ever? Whats to stop someone in the know with whatever group that might now be politically damaging to Mittens from "leaking" a document saying Mitt donated xxxxxxxx in 2000-2003?

The only thing to stop someone from doing that is the fact that they'd immediately lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from people who don't want the fact that they're donating to PP/whomever to come to light. This was far more plausible as a theory during the GOP primary (when right-wingers would've revolted en masse to those type of contributions), but I'd bet money that it's still true. There's no way you can claim to run "to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights" without contributing at least SOMETHING to one of the pro-gay-rights groups.

 

[stevew]

swift boat mormon style?

to be settled with ultimate wedgie contest?

 

[$tinkle]

The end game here is pretty simple: Get the returns released, or let endless speculation about what is in them run rampant.

Lose/lose proposition for Romney. There has to be something in there that is really ugly, or he would have released them a long time ago.

it's right out of the obama play book, which romeny's surrogates will use tirelessly re: obama's academic records

not that either are employing a bad strategy. rule #1 of politics: do not arm your opponent

 

[dante]

it's right out of the obama play book, which romeny's surrogates will use tirelessly re: obama's academic records

not that either are employing a bad strategy. rule #1 of politics: do not arm your opponent

I still think that the "academic records" is a bit of a red herring.... No part of Obama's platform has anything to do with affecting his academic records. A central plank of Romney's platform is reducing taxes (particularly on the wealthy), and he's refusing to say how that would have affected him over the past decade. The academic records is just another "gotcha" style attempt after Obama released his birth certificate, whereas presidents have routinely released years upon years of tax returns.

People (ok, independents) will dismiss Obama's refusal to release academic records from 30+ years ago that have zero bearing on the upcoming 4 years. Whether they will dismiss Romney's refusal to show how his proposed tax reform would have affected him in the past 10-12 years is less likely.

 

[$tinkle]

as i understand it, the main concern to his academic records is not so much his grades (believe he graduated cum laude - no slouch), but his opinions & content of his lectures. the reason being there's so much suspicion over how he would execute the office, as well as who he will appoint to various positions, most notably his bench appointment of that out-of-control dyke minority extremist who has been running roughshod over teh constitution since day 1. as we all know, if my daughter were malia's age, she would have already had a state-sanctioned abortion resulting from hands-on indoctrination at the mandatory annual 2 week commie camp funded by the Komen foundation

#theMoreYouKnow

 

[Pesqueeb]

*ahem*

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations.html