I hate to beat this topic into the ground, but really, if Romney can't be open and honest with the American people regarding something that should be relatively simple, what can we trust him to be open and honest about? At this point it is very obvious that he's hiding something that could disqualify his candidacy. He has no spine, so there is no reason to think this is really a stand on principles. He'd throw his principles in the toilet and piss on him if he thought it would get him a few more votes.
So with all of that in mind, I thought I would just throw one more idea out there and hopefully someone far smarter and more resourceful than I can either say for sure that this idea just speculation, or that there could be much more to it.
Follow me over the squiggle.
I've seen many different diaries and reports floating around about what could be in Romney's tax returns. All of it is very entertaining to read, and quite frankly, what's truly there may be even worse that what's currently being talked about. I've read in many of those diaries that the real issue may be the year 2009 since that is a year that no one has seen. He's released "most of" 2010, some of 2011, and he gave John McCain's people many years of returns in 2008. While I agree that there may be something fishy about 2009, it turns out that 2009 is not the only year that no one has seen.
When John McCain was vetting his vice presidential candidates, it would have been roughly July of 2008, or as a matter of rounding, this time of year, four years ago. That means the 2008 tax return could not have possibly been given to McCain's people. The year wouldn't have ended for another 5 months, and who knows how far into the year 2009 Romney would have actually filed his tax return after extensions were granted. Similarly, Romney probably did not have the 2007 return done yet at this point. He still hasn't completed his 2011 return as of this date in 2012, so why would we believe he had the 2007 return done by this time in 2008?
You may be asking yourself, "So what?" at this point. First of all, that's now three years of tax returns that no one has seen, not just one. That is a much bigger black hole that what we've been talking about. I've also read the speculation about the tax amnesty on the Swiss bank accounts as a theory of why Romney doesn't want anyone to see the 2009 return. That's a plausible theory, but could there be something in 2007 and 2008 equally as bad?
I'll be the first one to admit that I have no idea, so I started thinking about those years and wondered what could be different about those years that Mitt doesn't want anyone to see them. As I'm sure you all remember, Mr. Romney was a little busy in both of those year doing something called running for President the first time. You may also recall that he had a bit of a fundraising problem early on. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I recall him self-funding something along the lines of $35 million of his 2008 campaign.
We all know that Romney is very protective of his bundlers and he refused to be transparent about who the money people are behind his campaign. Is it possible that this is the real issue about the tax returns? If he releases 2007 and 2008, do we find out that the $35 million wasn't really "self-funded". Did he break campaign finance laws? Or are there simply some shenanigans on his returns related to the campaign finances? Maybe he somehow used his losses on the campaign to offset some of his other income?
As I've stated, maybe this is something, maybe it's nothing, but I would certainly bet say $10,000 that neither McCain's people, nor anyone one else, ever had access to his returns from 2007, 2008 and 2009, so they couldn't possible comment about what's in them. That's three years in play instead of one, and it sure leaves open a lot more possibilities about what Mitt is hiding.