July 18, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Romney should release tax returns to prove he has ‘nothing to hide’, according to…Romney
No, I’m not talking about Mitt Romney’s father George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968. Nope, I’m talking about Mittens.
A ThinkProgress article from October 2011 points out that while running for Massachusetts Senator, Mitt Romney called on Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to release his tax returns to show he had “nothing to hide.” During that Senate campaign in 1994 Romney said, “It’s time the biggest-taxing senator in Washington shows the people of Massachusetts how much he pays in taxes.”
In 2012, Mitt Romney says two years of tax returns is all he is going to release. But if Romney called on Senator Ted Kennedy to release tax returns to make sure he had “nothing to hide,” then it’s more than reasonable to expect Romney to match historical precedent and release more tax returns.
I mean, he is running for president after all!
And if you recall, Republicans love to say Barack Obama wasn’t fully vetted in 2008, so it’s not exactly a stretch to say Mitt Romney isn’t fully vetted in 2012 with only two years of tax returns. This is particularly true when you consider past presidential candidates have released at least 5 or 6 years on average, including Romney’s father as I noted above, who released 12 years of tax returns. Because Romney continues to ignore calls from both Democrats and Republicans to release more tax returns, speculation will persist and people will keep saying that Romney must have something to hide.
