#MittsMissingReturns

“One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”
--George Romney explaining why he released 12 years of tax returns when he was running for President in 1968 

"I congratulate Mitt Romney on releasing such extensive tax returns. It is now time that we get back to the issues of fixing our economy and helping the middle class..."
--Chris Christie's statement on Mitt's campaign website after George Romney's son released his return for one year

There is always a lot of wringing of hands here on the leftish end of the political spectrum about our inability (like Fox watchers, Beck acolytes, and Rush's dittoheads) to jump onto one issue as a group and single-mindedly badger the media about it.  We tend to establish our own priorities and we're generally not well adapted to things like marching in step.

I'm hoping that this issue of Mitt Romney's missing tax returns is an exception to that general rule.

Anyone who reads this article, "Where the Money Lives" in the August issue of Vanity Fair will want to know a lot of answers to questions the article raises about Bain Capital, semi-blind trusts, possible nepotistic deals, offshore accounts, IRAs, etc., etc. Many of those answers may be coded into Mitt Romney's 1040 forms and reams of attachments. Who knows what else may appear in 10-12 years worth of tax returns.
We know for sure that there are two embarassing facts that Mitt Romney and his campaign want to keep out of the public debate: 1) His total income each year is an eight-figure amount that is unfathomable for 99.9% of the United States population, and 2) His tax rate will be lower than most of ours because it's based mostly on capital gains rates (though that may be a stretching of tax law if you read the article), but the real reason to release the forms is because we have NO idea what we (through our intermediaries, the tax experts) may find there. This man wants us to elect him President of the United States based on his business background but with minimal actual vetting of his actual finances or business dealings.

If the right-wing could badger the press and the President about Barack Obama's birth certificate on an absurd theory that his mother had made a secret trip from Hawai'i to Kenya just to make sure that her son was not born on American soil, then I guess I can keep tweeting with a #MittsMissingReturns hashtag until he gives us at least a decade's worth of financial information. Maybe some of you will  join me.
The press is currently showing no signs of pushing for these documents. They need to be pushed to push.