United Liberty

Who would have thought Mitt Romney’s tax returns would be a welcome distraction? That’s what happened on Friday, after a week of being beat up for his remarks from a May fundrasier where he said that he’d written off 47% of voters, Romney campaign released his tax returns for 2011 along with a summary of this average tax rate from the previous decade:

Mitt Romney paid $1.9 million in federal taxes in 2011 on income of $13.7 million, an effective rate of 14.1% that reflects the Republican presidential candidate’s dividends, capital gains and other returns that are assessed at some of the lowest tax rates.

Romney’s tax return, which he released Friday, showed that he boosted his effective tax rate by not declaring all of the $4 million in charitable contributions that he made during 2011, instead only reporting $2.3 million. By doing so he stayed consistent with an earlier public statement that his tax rate for the year would not drop below 13%.

That last point about Romney not declaring all of this charitable contributions has made the Left apoplectic. They’re literally upset that Romney paid more in taxes than he was supposed to. Not only that, the substantial charitable giving — Romney gave almost 30% of his income to charity in 2011 and 13.4%  from 1990 to 2009 — takes away from the Left’s narrative that he is out of touch.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who baselessly suggested last month that Romney had not paid any taxes in years past, once again slammed Romney over the issue:

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” - Samuel Adams, 1781, Boston Gazette

Nearly a week after primary elections in Georgia, I am still contemplating whether I’m happy or disappointed in the voter turnout. Here in Bartow County, with 50,051 registered voters, only 16,326 (32.6%) came out on Election Day to cast a vote. In Bartow, for all intents and purposes, July 31st was the general election, because we have only two Democrats countywide running for any office, and both are running against immensely popular incumbents. In nearly every race, the winner of the Republican primary will be, by default, the winner in the November elections.

Think about what that means. In a county of approximately 105,000 people, with about 14,500 (89%) of the voters casting ballots on the Republican ticket, the decision as to who will be our next County Commissioner, Tax Commissioner, Sheriff, Chief Magistrate, and Clerk of Court, would all be decided with a mere 7,251 votes cast in their favor; and that assumes every voter cast a ballot in every race, which is not the case. Races representing smaller districts in the county were won with as few as 603 votes cast for the winner.

During a public appearence yesterday in his home state, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was pressed by reporters on his unsubstaniated charge that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid his taxes in 10 years.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid didn’t back down from his claim, for which he has absolutely no evidence. Reid once again said that Romney could put it to rest by producing more tax returns. Reporters kept after Reid on the charge, prompting him to snap, saying, “I’ve answered your question.”

He received some backing from ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who told the Huffington Post that because “[s]omebody told [Reid]” that Romney hadn’t paid his taxes that “Harry Reid made a statement that is true.”

On what planet that makes sense is anybody’s guess, but others aren’t so convinced. For example, PolitiFact reviewed the charge and weighed the likelihood that someone earning as much as Romney, and gave Reid their worst rating — “Pants on Fire”:

On Aug. 6, a Reid spokesman confirmed to PolitiFact that the majority leader still maintains the information came from the anonymous Bain investor. Our Truth-O-Meter guidelines say we hold officials accountable to back up their words. By those standards, Reid has not proven his allegation.

Still, we wondered how likely it was that Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made unsubstantiated accusations that the reason Mitt Romney only disclosed tax returns dating back to 2010 is because he didn’t pay taxes in years leading up to that point. Despite having no evidence to prove this charge, Reid said the burden on proof was on Romney.

Romney has denied Reid’s claim, saying that the Democratic leader should “put up or shut up.” While the Obama campaign denies that Reid is doing their bidding, they are certainly taking the opportunity to call on Romney to release more tax returns. During an interview on State of the Union, Robert Gibbs told Cindy Crowley, “I’ve never seen anybody jump through more hoops to say…that somebody’s lying, but also to not put out a document that would prove what the real truth is.”

Those of us concerned with the Fast and Furious scandal could make the same point presented by Gibbs, especially after President Obama used executive privilege to keep information from Congress. But I digress.

While some Republicans are hinting that Romney should release more tax returns to put the controversy to rest, others are beginning to fight back against Reid’s frivolous claim:

Yesterday, I noted the absurdity of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s suggestion that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid income taxes in 10 years, which he says is the reason why the soon-to-be-coronated GOP nominee hasn’t released tax returns before 2010. Reid has absolutely no proof of this, mind you. It’s heresay — gossip, if you will.

Reid even admits that he doesn’t know if the accusation is true. As Jon Stewart said on Wednesday night, “If you have to follow your claim with the words ‘I don’t know if that’s true’; then shut up.” Stewart continued, “‘Cause otherwise you might as well put a dead cockerspaniel on your head and start railing about birth certificates”; a reference to Donald Trump, who made has fool of himself by claiming that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate isn’t real.

Sadly, he hasn’t taken Stewart’s free advice. Instead, Reid took his baseless conspiracy theory to the floor of the Senate yesterday:

Mitt Romney’s taxes are once again coming up in the president campaign. With the Congress at a stalemate over whether to extend all current rates for another year and class warfare rhetoric ever-present, this is an issue where President Obama’s campaign and Democrats feel that Romney is vulnerable.

With that, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has taken it upon himself to float a baseless claim that the reason that Romney hasn’t disclosed more of his tax returns is because he didn’t pay any taxes at all:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) claimed Tuesday in an interview that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns because he didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.

The interview, published Tuesday by The Huffington Post, includes several swipes by the Senate leader at the GOP candidate.

“His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said in reference to George Romney’s decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968.

Reid suggested that Romney’s decision to withhold tax information would bar him from ever earning Senate confirmation to a Cabinet post. Then, Reid recalled a phone call his office received about a month ago from “a person who had invested with Bain Capital,” according to The Huffington Post.

Reid said the person told him: “Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years.”

Among the distractions in the presidential campaign right now are calls for Mitt Romney to release more of this tax returns. He has released returns dating back to 2010, but that isn’t enough for Team Obama and campaign surrogates. They’re now speculating on what he may be hiding, goes so far as to say that he may have broken the law. The media, of course, is also dragging out the story for all it worth.

But during a press conference yesterday, ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has called on Romney to release more information about his taxes, became the subject of questions about her own tax returns. The questions came about due to a McClatchy report finding that only handful of members disclose their tax records. Pelosi initially reacted with contempt for the questions, explaining that when she runs for president, the media “can hold [her] to that standard.” But she quickly began downplaying the tax return issue, calling it a distraction:

[W]hile maintaining Romney should release more documents because of “custom” and “tradition,” Pelosi said the issue was trivial compared with economic issues.

“We spent too much time on that. We should be talking about middle-income tax cuts,” Pelosi said after answering two questions about the issue.