Wealthy shaking in their boots about Romney's taxes?

[gulliver]

I'll bet the very wealthy, Romney's biggest backers, are apoplectic about the idea that he might be forced to release his tax returns. They won't let that happen. The last thing they need is for the American people to be educated on just how far the wealthy can go to avoid paying taxes.

It's not just that Americans would be so disgusted they wouldn't want to see Romney himself as president. They might raise a wholesale backlash against "Romney types." The whole shell game might be given away.

Romney isn't just hiding his own returns. He is hiding and threatening to expose the loopholes and chicanery of everyone like him.

[Happyhippychick]

1. Oh absolutely. If Lerch releases his returns there will be an outcry for tax reform on the wealthy.

He knows it and they know it. Fortunately, it may happen anyway even if he doesn't release them because he has handled this so poorly and it's a major albatross.

But fuck him.

[hedgehog]

2. I agree 100%! I think people have no understanding what we are talking

about when we speak of the 1%. Romney puts a face on the ultra rich. He got rich with no risks (his employer guaranteed he'd get his old job back with pay raises if Bain Capital didn't work out!). He wasn't very good at it, either - half the investments he made lost money. He manipulated the law to loot companies, dump debts on other people and take the money and run.

Where's Woodie Guthrie now that we need him!?!

Pretty Boy Floyd
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
Oklahoma knew him well.

It was in the town of Shawnee,
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.

There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.

Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.

Then he took to the trees and timber
Along the river shore,
Hiding on the river bottom
And he never come back no more.

Yes, he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.

But a many a starvin' farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.

Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand-dollar bill.

It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:

"Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief."

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

[Anansi1171]

3. Given this was "Shill Sunday"...

where Candy Crowley, George Stephanopolous, and just about every other morning commentator tried to painfully push the narrative beyond this weeks polls, the taxes and more - yes. Romney's in it not just to do their dirty-work, but to shred the evidence. Of course they can trust him; he has skin in the game.

[Scuba]

4. "Romney isn't the answer, he's the problem" and the wealthy don't want to expose their trickery....

... so it's unlikely he'll ever release his returns.

Exposing how our tax code is designed to benefit the wealthy and screw everyone else is a major opportunity right now, and we should not let it go to waste.