The biggest mistake Democrats made when they asked for Trump's taxes
Friday’s release of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns from his four years in the White House and two years prior is an important and long overdue public service. It ensures the continuation of the half-century-long tradition of Oval Office transparency in which Americans are able to review their commander in chief’s taxes. It also ensures that legal wrangling over more than three-and-a-half years couldn’t keep the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining the tax documents guaranteed to them under federal law.
But the result is still unsatisfying. The returns don’t go back to Trump’s decades as a taxpayer before he ran for president in 2016 and won in a giant upset, even though presidents from Richard Nixon on have released returns from the years leading up to their campaigns. It’s an important principle to follow as a matter of historical record. It also would have been a warning shot to any future presidents who may want to keep their tax returns private.
Trump based his run on his personal brand as a savvy business operator, which was, in fact, a myth and a legend — an act of misdirection so seemingly profound it would likely make fabulist Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) blush. Full disclosure of those taxes would have meant that future voters would have at the very least, been able to see Trump wasn’t the business whiz he claimed. And it might have made a difference in an election where Trump won the Electoral College over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by a combined 79,646 votes in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin out of more than 136 million cast nationally. Future voters surely deserve that information given that Trump is running to reclaim the presidency, in the 2024 election.
Trump had starred in “The Apprentice” for over a decade, a show that resurrected a moribund career that included having his businesses declare bankruptcy multiple times. News reports also have shown Trump to have been a hugely irresponsible financial risk-taker who reportedly stiffed vendors and lawyers. Several analyses of Trump’s wealth have even found he’d be far richer if he had just stuck his family inheritance in an indexed fund and watched it appreciate over time. But we can’t fully judge Trump’s claims about his pre-presidency business acumen since the documents now public cover only calendar years 2015-20.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-biggest-mistake-democrats-made-when-they-asked-for-trump-s-taxes/ar-AA15PkWt
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