I sure hope Harry Reid knows what he is doing, or he might wind up helping Mitt Romney in the end. As Romney refuses to release his tax returns we cannot be certain whether the accusations are true, but Reids claims that a Bain investor told him that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years sounds rather fishy. Even a Bain investor actually did say that, how credible would this be. I’ve never seen a financial adviser show their personal tax returns to a client. If Mitt Romney won’t release his tax returns when he should, while running for president, whey would he have shown them to a client when their was no reason to?
The reactions of the McCain people, who did see many of his returns four years ago, also makes me doubt there would be anything as damaging as not paying taxes for ten years. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his rate was closer to zero than 15 percent in 2009.
Of course we cannot be certain about this unless Romney does release his tax returns. Perhaps Romney did brag about not paying taxes, and perhaps the McCain people are covering for him out of party unity.
Harry Reid is sticking to his accusations:
On Wednesday, Reid stuck to his story, and broadened it.
“I am not basing this on some figment of my imagination,” Reid said in a telephone call with Nevada reporters. “I have had a number of people tell me that.”
Asked to elaborate on his sources, Reid declined. “No, that’s the best you’re going to get from me.”
“I don’t think the burden should be on me,” Reid said. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn’t he release his tax returns?”
A Romney spokesman said Reid’s charge was baseless and below the belt.
Burden of proof isn’t so one-sided here. Romney should release his tax returns, but that doesn’t free Reid of being obligated to back up his charges too.
There are possible up-sides to this. Reid is drawing even more attention to Romney’s refusal to release his tax returns. This might also force Romney to release his returns.
One possible down-side to this is that should Romney release his tax returns, whatever comes out might not be as bad as Reid is alleging, and the meia story could then change to Romney’s vindication. If it turns out that Romney is hiding something such as only paying around 5 percent for a couple of years, the story could then be that the charges of paying no taxes for ten years were outright false as opposed to how little taxes Romney paid.
Looking at the reactions to this around the blogosphere is amusing. Conservatives seem unanimous in condemning Reid for making false accusations, which is rather hypocritical considering that conservatives (including Romney) make false accusations about Democrats on a regular basis. Most conservatives can’t conceive of responding to liberals with anything other than a gross distortion of the facts. As Steve M. says, “welcome to our world, Mitt. Now you have a vague sense of how Democrats feel all the time.” Still, do we really want a Democratic leader acting like a Republican?
You know, i might feel the same way if the GOPers hadn’t already completely poisoned the atmosphere with poisonous lies about Dems.
If they can dish it out, then hell yes, they are gonna have to take it!
Therefore, so what if this does turn out to be a lie?
Reid can make exactly the same kind of “apology” as those Swiftboat liars, or Donald Trump for saying Obama was born in Kenya.
The only difference is that the GOPers lie DELIBERATELY and HABITUALLY— and rarely get called for it by the press— while Dems are mysteriously expected to be proper gentlemen who always abide by Marquis of Queensbury rules and bring tiny little knives to gun fights.
Payback is a bitch, wingnuts, suck it up!
Reid knows what he is doing, private equity guys do not pay taxes or pay them a extrememly low rates. Keep in mind that his 13% (or so) rate in paid in 2010 was on his reported income, not his cash flow, this is extremely important in leveraged investments because cash from refinancings is TAX FREE!!
So what,
The problem is that if Reid is doing the same thing as the Republicans, it reinforces the media narrative that both parties are the same. If we are ever to get people to realize that the dishonesty is overwhelmingly on the part of Republicans, we can’t have Democrats doing the same sort of thing (unless Reid can back up what he is saying).
phg,
I fear that if a lot of noise is made regarding accusations that Reid paid zero taxes for ten years then whatever Romney actually paid, even if low, will no longer look as bad if it is low but above zero.
I Hope Harry Reid Knows What He Is Doing Or He Should Stop Acting Like A Republican – http://t.co/T477ChFI
It never ceases to amaze me how different a world view liberals have. Republicans deliberately lie about Republicans all the time, it is what we call primaries. Romney hasn’t been thrown into a strange new world with Reid’s baseless attack. I just can’t believe there are so many people out there on the left that think their party’s leaders are all angels. Yes, Republican politicians deliberately attack and lie about their opponents. I just can’t fathom people think the party of Clinton, Rangel, and Schumer is the party of truth and righteousness.
Yes, Republicans lie about Republicans. Republicans lie about Democrats. Republicans lie about virtually everything. They lie about their opponents. They lie about what they have actually done. They lie about facts about the economy. Worst of all, not long ago they lied us into a war.
All politicians, Democrats and Republcians, lie to some extent, but there is a tremendous difference in magnitude between lies from Republcians and Democrats. Romney’s entire stump speech is one lie after another. Same is true of his ads. There is very litte correlation between reality and what Republicans campaign on. Romney also lied repeatedly when campaigning against fellow Republicans.
Compared to Republicans, Democrats are the party of truth and righteousness. There’s no Democratic comparison to the Republican lies that Obama is a Muslim born outside of the United States, that he is a socialist, that he is bringing about a government take over of health care, that he raised taxes when he actually cut them, or blaming him for the Bush deficit. There’s no Democratic comparison to the all the recent noise misquoting Obama, falsely claiming he said that businessmen did not build their business. Same is true of several other misquotations Republicans have campaigned on.
Republicans must lie to hide their actual policies and sucker people into voting for them, agaisnt their own self-interest and agaisnt the interests of the United States. After all Republicans aren’t going to admit they are the party of bigger government, increased deficits, and higher taxes for all except the ultra-wealthy. The entire Republican message is a lie, making it impossible for Republicans to do anything but lie when campaigning.
A listing of Romney’s lies
I’m a little jaded to the arguments that one whole set of politicians are less bad than another set. But to each his own. Any particular candidate you believe in enough this go around to back financially? It seems the last time you felt strong enough to put money behind a candidate was 2004. (Of course not to diminish in any way your work on your blog, just wondering if you were planning on taking it farther than that.)
The fact is that the Republicans have been far more dishonest. As for contributions, I’ve contributed to candidates in 2006, 2008, 2010, and so far to Obama this election cycle.
As for 2004 (when I also contributed to John Kerry), that election showed yet another example of the extreme dishonesty of the Republicans which far exceeds anything seen by the Democrats with the Swift Boat Liars, who were directly tied to Karl Rove and the Bush White House.
There’s nothing coming from the Democrats which comes close to the Republicans in dishonesty.