Harry Reid once again makes the solid arguments that Mitt Romney lacks the character and integrity to be the President of the United States. In an op-ed penned for the Las Vegas Sun, Reid reviews several of Romney's recent missteps homing in on two blatant problems with his character: Romney's 47% comment and his failure to release more than two years of his tax returns.
We’ve learned an awful lot of troubling things about Mitt Romney recently. First, his sweeping, closed-door condemnation of President Barack Obama’s supporters revealed the disdain he has for half the population he hopes to serve. Then, the limited tax returns Romney selectively released confirmed that he’s willing to share information about the time he’s been in the public eye and running for president, but not the time he was running the corporation he touts as his sole qualifying credential for the highest office in the land.
First with regard to the 47% comment, Reid says:
Romney stands not only on shaky ethical grounds in making that indiscriminate generalization — he’s also on flimsy factual footing. The 47 percent Romney derides as self-pitying “victims” includes seniors who live on a fixed income thanks to the Social Security they paid into and earned over a lifetime of hard work, our troops in combat zones and veterans who have fought for our country. It includes students studying to get the skills that will win them the jobs of the future and decent Americans actively looking for work because their jobs were outsourced by companies such as those Romney specialized in developing. Most of them pay plenty of payroll, property, local and state taxes.
Then Reid brings up Romney's taxes again. This is a subject that Reid has not let go of since he
first disclosed to The Huffington Post that he had been told "He didn't pay taxes for 10 years!"
The second lesson we learned came at another time Romney thought no one was looking: He released his 2011 tax returns late on a Friday afternoon in the hopes of making the smallest news splash possible.
What was he trying to hide? Perhaps that, despite his tough talk on China, he profited from investments in a state-owned Chinese oil company and a video company known for pirating copyrighted content. Or that, despite calling Russia our “No. 1 geopolitical foe” and his fiery rhetoric against Iran, he invested in Russia’s state-owned oil giant, which does business with Iran. Or that the candidate with the slogan “Believe in America” has been betting against the U.S. dollar by buying foreign currencies and keeping his investments in the Caymans and Bermuda. Or maybe he was hoping no one would notice that he paid just 14 percent of his $14 million income, a rate lower than many middle-class families pay.
Yeah! Harry Reid isn't backing down, and convincingly explains to readers of the
Las Vegas Sun why Mitt Romney is not qualified to be president.
The offensive comments Romney hoped would stay private and the remaining tax returns that he’s still withholding from the American people are important because they are windows into the character, values and priorities of someone who could drive our nation’s economic policy.
I encourage you to read the op-ed as it would not be appropriate to quote any more from it here.
There is one point I would like to make which occurred to me at the time Romney released his 2011 tax return. Along with the return came a notarized letter from PriceWaterhouseCoopers with a 20 year summary of Romney's previous taxes. It was a statement that reflected an average of what Romney had paid over 20 years. Why does this stand out? Remember what Reid said to the Huffington Post back in July: "He didn't pay taxes for 10 years!"
When Romney's campaign released that summary, there was another call from the right for Harry Reid to apologize to Mitt Romney for saying he didn't pay taxes. They called Harry Reid a liar, yet again. Harry Reid talked about 10 years. Romney released an average of 20 years. Why? When you average 20 numbers together, ten of those numbers can be ZERO, and you still come up with an average. When did anybody ask Romney to release 20 years of tax information? People have been asking for 10 years. Just saying'