How much Mitt paid in taxes is great political theater and certainly illustrates how different Mitt's life is from the average American.
But that is NOT the most important thing about whether or not Mitt releases more tax returns.
The most important thing is NATIONAL SECURITY. And this NATIONAL SECURITY argument is how we should answer when Mitt evades the issue and tries to make it seem like its ONLY about how much he paid.
Its also about:
1) Who did Mitt do business with when making business/investment deals?
2) Are there world events that, blind trust or not, will cost Mitt money or make Mitt richer that will be influenced by his Presidency?
3) Are there places in the world where, due to Mitt's or Bain's dealings, Mitt Romney is unable to represent the interests of the United States?
We'll tackle these in extended...
Again, this is an issue of NATIONAL SECURITY. We need to know if the President is compromised or has a conflict of interest -- just like any federal employee, you shouldn't be in charge of something that you will either profit from or have substantial business or personal investments. Why? Because no matter how strongly patriotic Mitt is, he is only human, and he will be in a position to both broadly and in subtle ways influence foreign policy and capital investments.
1) Who did Mitt do business with when making business/investment deals?
We know that Mitt has a lot off offshore business interests.
Where are they, who knows what they are, and who is in a position to exploit this if Mitt becomes President not disclosing his more recent tax returns?
Likewise, the Romneys were reported to have invested at least $1 million in Elliott Associates, L.P., a hedge fund specializing in “distressed assets.” Elliott buys up cheap debt, often at cents on the dollar, from lenders to deeply troubled nations such as Congo-Brazzaville, then attacks the debtor states with lawsuits to squeeze maximum repayment. Elliott is run by the secretive hedge-fund billionaire and G.O.P. super-donor Paul Singer, whom Fortune recently dubbed Mitt Romney’s “Hedge Fund Kingmaker.” (Singer has given $1 million to Romney’s super-pac Restore Our Future.)
So Romney has invested, in offshore accounts and blind trusts, all sorts of money that has the ability to influence events in Africa, Iran, really all over the world.
Gee, it would sure be embarrassing for a sitting President to be called out over a potential foreign policy issue that enriched him and his friends, or for which he was influenced for fear of disclosure.
One cannot properly understand Wall Street’s size and power without appreciating the central role of offshore tax havens. There is absolutely no evidence that Bain has done anything illegal, but private equity is one channel for this secrecy-shrouded foreign money to enter the United States, and a filing for Mitt Romney’s first $37 million Bain Capital Fund, of 1984, provides a rare window into this. One foreign investor, of $2 million, was the newspaper tycoon, tax evader, and fraudster Robert Maxwell, who fell from his yacht, and drowned, off of the Canary Islands in 1991 in strange circumstances, after looting his company’s pension fund. The Bain filing also names Eduardo Poma, a member of one of the “14 families” oligarchy that has controlled most of El Salvador’s wealth for decades; oddly, Poma is listed as sharing a Miami address with two anonymous companies that invested $1.5 million between them. The filings also show a Geneva-based trustee overseeing a trust that invested $2.5 million, a Bahamas corporation that put in $3 million, and three corporations in the tax haven of Panama, historically a favored destination for Latin-American dirty money—“one of the filthiest money-laundering sinks in the world,” as a U.S. Customs official once put it.
So, it appears Mitt both individually and through his Bain holdings, is involved at every level with all sorts of shady people, leaders, corporations, tax havens, etc. And these people, who are likely up to no good at least some of the time, would have no leverage against the sitting President to look the other way or otherwise avoid justice for these individuals? Even if Mitt does look the other way, how does he ensure his decision-making is totally above-board?
HE RELEASES HIS TAX RETURNS AND FULLY DISCLOSES. If not, how can he be President?
2) Are there world events that, blind trust or not, will cost Mitt money or make Mitt richer that will be influenced by his Presidency?
Let's look where Mitt is invested:
Recently disclosed tax returns for three family trust funds for Romney, his wife, Ann, and their adult children show scores of trades in companies whose business operations are inconsistent with Republican Party stances that Romney favors on Iran, China, stem cell research, abortion and other issues.
I'll ignore the abortion/stem cell issues, because that's Mitt's problem to handle with his base (good luck). The investments in China and especially in Iranian oil are troubling.
First, becauseits a LOT of money.
This year, Mitt promises to check Iran’s nuclear ambition – even though he pumped his money into the very economy that sustains it. Although Gazprom and Lukoil are oil companies headquartered in Russia, Mitt drew heat when he declared, in recent months, that “the Soviet Union is America’s biggest enemy.” Furthermore, while Romney yells that “Obama is not tough enough on China”, both CNOOC and Sinopec are Chinese state-owned corporations in which Mitt Romney heavily invested.
We all know how oil is priced - a crisis in the middle east makes oil prices spike. At the very same time Mitt is getting the U.S. in a war with Iran, he would stand, blind trust or not, to make billions of dollars.
3) Are there places in the world where, due to Mitt's or Bain's dealings, Mitt Romney is unable to represent the interests of the United States?
Mitt's Iranian oil investment already raises eyebrows in Israel, as this diary illustrates.
Now, as Mitt Romney does his stiff PR Israeli tour, how will the people of Israel view Romney investing in a State, Iran, that aims to nuke Israel and spouts their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?
And then there's Italy:
We already know that
Mitt is not welcome in Italy.
That’s because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25 times what it paid.
Basically, Bain ripped of the near-broke Italian govt at a time of austerity and made a fortune. And its wasn't just Bain, it was Mitt himself who is blamed.
As Bain’s CEO from 1984 to 2001, Romney was personally involved in the deal at various points, including the initial decision to invest. He attended at least one meeting about it in Boston, according to a participant. When Bain sold the directory business in 2000, Romney, while still holding the title of CEO, was in charge of preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Romney has contended that he gave up management control of Bain in February 1999 to run the games.
“Mitt Romney and Bain played the role of successful financial speculators at the peril of the Italian government and the small stock-market investors who were burned by the sharp decline in Seat (PG) shares,” said Giovanni Pons, a journalist for la Repubblica and co-author of “L’Affare Telecom” (2002), which recounts details of the Bain deal.
These are a couple of instances we know about. The American people have a right to know what else Mitt has dabbled in, what other cookie jars he's had his fingers in, how many other governments or important officials he's either pissed off or believe he owes them something. Because as President he'll be in a position to deliver payback - with OUR money and national reputation.
This isn't about how much Mitt paid in taxes, its about NATIONAL SECURITY. The American people have a right to know what we're getting into and what baggage Mitt brings as President. This should be our answer to EVERY story about Mitt's taxes.
1:38 PM PT: Thanks for the reccs.
One point I did not make. Mitt himself has scoffed at Blind Trusts
http://www.dailykos.com/...
He's not dumb. He remembers and has knowledge of exactly where his money is. How could he not? And even if its in a blind trust, he knows a war here or a crisis there would make him a lot of money or lose him money. AND HE HAS SHOWN NO WILLINGNESS TO SACRIFICE A PENNY in order to get elected. I don't know who should be more pissed - potential voters or Republicans who have to live with this guy as their nominee.
The question this diary asks is:
1) Why is this not a HUGE issue and
2) Why don't we, when they say "prove it" or some such to Democrats, shoot back - "we're asking because we're concerned with NATIONAL SECURITY" - I would like some prominent Democrat to say that and see what the response is.
2:13 PM PT: An idea from the comments:
Mitt should be asked to sign a piece of paper agreeing to the most stringent federal blind trust standard. He'll say "no" of course - another nice trap.