Over the weekend, ABC News' David Muir sat down with Mitt Romney, and brought up the still-hidden tax returns. Specifically, the reporter asked, "[F]rom what you have released and from what we have seen we know that there was one year when you paid about 13.9% tax rate. Can we clear this up by asking a simple yes or no question? Was there ever any year when you paid lower than 13.9%?"
Romney said he didn't know, but added, "I'm happy to go back and look."
So, how soon will Romney happily go back and look? It certainly didn't happen yesterday -- ABC News followed up with the Republican campaign, which would only say that Romney "has fully complied with U.S. law." That's nice, and I'm glad, but Romney also said he'd go back and look, and it's not unreasonable to think he should keep that commitment.
The Obama campaign clearly hopes to keep the pressure on, and released this video this morning.
One other thing: I brushed past this in yesterday's item, but when Romney talked to Muir about this, he went on to say, "I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president."
It was an odd thing to say. As Rachel explained on the show last night, "When Mr. Romney's father disclosed all those years of tax returns when he was running, one of the revelations in this tax returns is that he did not take advantage of every loophole, every means of avoiding taxes that he could have. Wasn't Mitt Romney in effect saying that by doing, his dad wasn't qualified to be president?"
Yep.
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Rather than seeing that Mitt paid minimal taxes, it would be quite enlightening to see what his super-secret off shore corporations and accounts were involved with. Was there money laundering, or evidence that Mitt was aware of the financial market misdeeds before the public? Did he make money from the packaged bad debt sales by the banks? Was he betting against America to turn a profit? Does he have a financial interest in war with Iran? Secrecy encourages a lot of imagination. Tear down that wall of secrecy Mr. Republican!
You hit on exactly what I've been thinking for the past several weeks. The "bright shiny object" that the press has been chasing after is that he might have paid no taxes, or at least very low rates.
I've been wondering if he didn't make piles of money in 2008 and 2009. Did he bet against the dollar when trading currencies? Was he betting against "Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class America" by being on the short side of mortgage-backed credit default swaps? Did he short stocks, or sell puts in the options market?
Whether his profits came from through research and wise security selection or by taking advantage of some inside information is almost irrelevant. The public reaction to his bets against the country would be more damning than his losing money and paying lower tax rates.
The press needs to be alert to this possibility and knowledgeable enough about the securities markets to explain it to the public in understandable terms.
It is very sad that the producers of the Rachel Maddow show will not put a link up to their segment on the pseudoscience lies they propagate about fracking. I wonder what they are afraid of?
Rachel continues to spread her lies and pseudoscience about fracking. I guess that fracking companies have the ability to travel backwards in time and put methane into wells BEFORE ANYONE EVER DRILLED A HOLE on their land. The people who the Rachel Maddow show showed lighting their water on fire were able to do that years before fracking. Why???? Because in some places it is a naturally occurring phenomenon especially if there is oil right beneath you.
Rachel also continues to spread the pseudoscience that fracking causes earthquakes. There is no evidence and Rachel and the producers of the RMS are guilty of the fallacy that correlation is causation.
Does Rachel Maddow believe in the pseudoscience of anti-vaccine nutcase Jenny McCarthy too?
Speaking of coming clean, what oil company is it that you work for?
If you've been paying attention, she did a segment a few months ago that demonstrated some of the negative effects of fracking. One man held a match to his drinking water and it caught on fire.
Fracking isn't bad, per se. But the technology certainly needs to be refined so that it's safer. We can't have oil leaking into people's water supplies.
It's ridiculus to think cracking bedrock is safe in any way for those living nearby. It is not the oil leaking into wells it is the chemicals used to extract that oil from the rock that leaks into the wells along with chemicals they use to fill the voids.
We'll just ignore the quakes and of course the fact that in order to obtain enough fuel these companies do not "frack" in just the area where they set up but under homes and businesses.
of possible interest
Special Investigation: The Earthquakes and Toxic Waste of Ohio's Fracking Boom
7/31/12 // Mike Ludwig // Truthout
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10606-special-investigation-the-earthquakes-and-toxic-waste-of-ohios-fracking-boom
mpguy said:
"Speaking of coming clean, what oil company is it that you work for?"
You are paranoid. I'm a liberal. I just don't drink Rachel's koolaide.
"One man held a match to his drinking water and it caught on fire."
Yes. Did you know that he could light his water on fire BEFORE there was any fracking in his area? Have the oil companies developed time travel? Rachel didn't tell you that did she? She knows it's true. She knows that the people in that pseudoscientific documentary had methane in their ground water BEFORE fracking.
That is my point. Rachel Maddow is DELIBERATELY lying to you. Just like the oil companies DELIBERATELY lie to global warming denialists. It's motivated by political ideology. In Rachel's case it is from the left instead of from the right in the case of climate denialists but that doesn't make it any less false.
I am on the side of truth.
"We can't have oil leaking into people's water supplies."
There is ZERO evidence that natural gas miraculously turns into OIL and then travels from 10,000 feet down through solid bedrock to contaminate shallow wells that had methane in them BEFORE the fracking wells were even drilled.
Russell Leisenheimer said:
"of possible interest.. " [followed by a link to TruthOut, a popular left wing internet web site.]
TruthOut is not a scientific journal and cites no scientific studies that show fracking causes earthquakes. It does link to a study that raises concerns about large scale carbon sequestration but last I checked that is NOT fracking.
There is NO scientific evidence that fracking causes earthquakes and the idea that it ever could cause them flies in the face of what we know about geology.
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/frackingwater and then--
For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.from-http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking
More subtle-
You’ve got three spatial dimensions and time” to consider, Ingraffea says. He doubts a single lateral frack can connect the shale layers to the surface. Still, he adds, “if you look at the problem as I just described it, I think the probabilities go up. How much? I don’t know.”
Guilt by Definition
The scientists and regulators now trying to answer this complex question have arrived a little late. We could have used their research before fracking became a big controversy. The technique is the cause of political conflict in New York, where the Department of Environmental Conservation recently unveiled a plan to give drilling companies access to 85 percent of the state’s portion of the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations. Fracking would not be allowed in the New York City or Syracuse watersheds, because those water supplies are unfiltered between source and citizen..from:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-fracking
of possible interest
(Reuters) 3/9/12
An Ohio state agency said on Friday there is evidence that the high-pressure injection of fluid underground related to fracking caused a series of Ohio earthquakes culminating in a New Year's Eve tremor in any area not known for seismic activity.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/us-energy-fracking-ohio-idUSBRE8281DX20120309
Oh thank you sir, for our daily demonstration of how stupid someone has to be to flunk the IQ test low enough to be one of you. Do you have opposable thumbs? Do you have frontal lobes? You're definitely a Homo Sap and not a Sapiens.
Paul S. Campbell -- From his first link:
Not exactly a stunning refutation of what I said.
From Paul's second link:
Correlation is not causation.
Paul's third link says nothing.
---------------------------------------
Russell Leisenheimer - From Russell's link:
Yes, in this one particular instance fracking caused an unknown but already existing fault line to slip. By itself however fracking CANNOT cause geological fault lines to appear where none existed before.
-------------------------------------
TCinLA simply engages in personal attack and ad hom which tells us a great deal about his or her lack of moral integrity and absolutely nothing about whether or not what I say is true.
Romney is pulling the oldest trick in the book.I'll get back to you.
"I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president."
This is one of the stupidest thoughts I've ever seen. And insulated from reality. Lots of tax loopholes that can be used to avoid paying more than is legally due require fancy footwork by accountants and tax lawyers, something that takes time and money. There certainly comes a time when it's not worth paying your accountants and lawyers to exploit those last few loopholes -- e.g., paying $10,000 to get a $1,000 tax break. Plus, how many non-ultra-rich Americans have the time or money to avoid paying more than what is legally due?
Hey, he said he'd be happy to go back and take a look, not that he'd be happy to tell anyone what he found! He may very well have already done it, so it's technically not even a lie.
yup...besides Anne already said we're getting all we're going to get.
Four years of conservative obstruction and money wasted on demonizing Obama just so voters will trade him in for a manicured airbag who'll pen-whip whatever they want?
I agree that RoMoney's reasoning for not releasing tax returns has to be about way more than a low tax rate or a payment of $0. It has be related to his off-shore accounts and as we know he has them, it has to be about their activities. I surely do hope that investigative journalists are investigating and don't give it up until we get an answer because it will not be forthcoming out of RoMoney's camp.
Also his wording that he paid what he was legally obligated to pay is lawyer speak for - yeah, so I moved a couple things around to get the best result for me and if they don't find it - too bad!
The part about if he had paid more than legally required he would not be qualified to be President, implies that "you people" would want a crafty, skirt-the-rules and fly under the radar kinda guy for President.
His every word tells me that he does not get it that he is interviewing to be the employee of "you people" and not the "boss" as in dictator. There's the best reason to not vote for him.
The saddest thing about Lord Willard's embarrassing candidacy is how he has besmirched the character of his own father, George Romney, a truly great and admirable man who would have made a fine president but who his son would denounce as a Socialist if he were still alive. How humiliated poor George would be if he'd lived to see the "man" his son grew up to be, how utterly devoid of character is first-born is. Where did he go so wrong?
Small nit, Alan, but Mitt is the fourth child. Lynn Keenan, Jane Romney, G. Scott Romney, W. Mitt Romney in that order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney
Isn't it strange that we haven't heard anything from his siblings, all of whom are still alive? Like SUPPORT for his candidacy.
Because only someone who can shamelessly exploit a hopelessly convoluted tax code is qualified to be president.
Does that mean George Washington wasn't qualified? I don't know if he was ever so reckless as to pay a single cent more in taxes than he owed, but he did initially decline to take any salary as President. He later accepted the salary, but only so as not to set a bad precedent that the President had to be independently wealthy.
Come to think of it, I'm not qualified to be President either. I once saw a nickel lying on the sidewalk and didn't bother to pick it up.
That isn't the major takeaway from that interview, it's this (p3):
Romney: I tend to tell people what I actually believe
Willard: taking the second "m" out of "Mormon" at every opportunity.
Is there any chance that this is all ruse,much to do about nothing, and Romney will at a later date release his returns and they won't be nearly as bad as some have speculated? Then he could diffuse a major Democratic attack point at the last minute to push his candidacy over the top.