ROMNEY's TAX RETURNS

The Washington Post reported today that Pres. Obama proposed a deal on Mitt Romney's tax returns: if Romney releases 5 years worth, the campaign will stop asking for good. Romney's campaign has contended for months now that one of the main reasons Mitt refuses to release more than 2 years of tax returns is because the Obama camp will, like a neighborhood gang lord, always ask for more. In a perfect world, the two candidates would shake hands, Romney's tax returns would come out and, being as boring as Romney's haircut implies about everything he comes in contact with, the story would fade in a single news cycle.

Ours is not a perfect world. If Romney releases his returns now, he looks weak. If he doesn't, he looks suspicious. Do not doubt for a second that Willard Mitt Romney will choose to look "suspicious" every time.

And what kind of name is Mitt, anyway? That nigga's mom wanted to name him "Mittens," y'all. I've got an anonymous source.

Romney's campaign predictably declined the request, citing the candidate's left middle finger.

"It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending." - Matt Roads, Romney for President Campaign Manager

Well, this is all fairly standard political theater. What I find really* surprising is how many non-politicos actually buy it. I hear ordinary conservatives, our friends and neighbors, with no obligation to stay on-message, pretty much repeat Matt Roads' reply verbatim. They cannot fathom why Mitt Romney's tax returns could possibly be of interest in the face of "real problems." For that, Matt Roads deserves a response:

First of, I'm a little dismayed that the only issues you include among the most important are economic, considering the social and military concerns the nation still faces.

Putting that aside for now, Romney's tax returns are certainly germane to the national conversion about fiscal policy. One of the loci of contention in our politics lately** is where to rest the tax burden for citizens across all income levels. The central theme of the left's argument is that the extremely rich (like Romney and, conspicuously, many others in government) benefit unduly from structural advantages within the tax code and, thus, do not pay their fair share, even if they pay what current law requires. Americans (including many/most prominent Republicans) have called for Romney to put his actual tax history on the record.

Additionally, Romney has been known to be less-than-truthful in the past vis-a-vis matters overlapping his business and public life. He filled taxes as a Utah resident while working on the Winter Olympics to save money, then he told the state elections board that he was actually paying in MA the entire time and was thus eligible to run for governor. This, as a matter of public record, is not true. And, of course, there is the lingering question of just when he was and was not working for Bain Capital. Americans are understandably reluctant to take this latest claim about his tax history on faith.

This, on top of the fact that the unprecedented move of releasing only the tax returns of years in which you knew you would run for President just strikes people as a little cagey. Romney has willingly allowed this sideshow to be created around him. Unless he really does have something to hide, it might better to just put the matter to rest, Obama-birth-certificate style.

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*  not really
**   for more information, see: the history of human civilization