The "cause other people are doing it" failed excuse has been debunked long ago, using it just makes you look even more loonie than the average returner.
Only viable to a loonie returner.
No, more like if someone's interviewing for a job at my company, I expect some standard information from him - past employment, education, possibly references, etc. If he adamantly refuses to tell me where he went to school, for example, that's surprising. Normally I wouldn't really care, because it probably doesn't tell me very much, but his refusal to give up standard info raises my eyebrows. I ask why he won't, and he says it will just make me not want to hire him. I call his reference and ask if maybe he knows why the adamant refusal, and the reference says "Well why would he tell you where he went to school? Just because everyone else does? I haven't heard a good reason!"
Would this not enter into your decision on hiring this potential employee?
The more shrill and dishonest people like cybrsage become over this issue, the more obvious it is that they are scared of how effective this attack line is. The fact that Romney's own father set the standard he refuses to follow, and that the demands for his tax returns started during the Republican primaries, make the effort to hand-wave this away utterly ineffective.
This is the appropriate analogy. And it's the assessment many Americans are making about Mitt Romney right now, and why bluster about how well Obama did in college almost 30 years ago is not going to successfully distract them from that valid concern.
The more shrill and dishonest people like cybrsage become over this issue, the more obvious it is that they are scared of how effective this attack line is. The fact that Romney's own father set the standard he refuses to follow, and that the demands for his tax returns started during the Republican primaries, make the effort to hand-wave this away utterly ineffective.
This is the great thing about Romney as an opponent - there seems literally to be no issue in which he has not contradicted his current position in the past.
Do you think, to mirror the hiring process, we should have a standard set of documents we require from every candidate?
Yep. Seems to be true of most of his supporters too (not that there are very many people who actually like Romney, mind you -- so perhaps "supporter" isn't the right word.)
It's sad that a man so dishonest that he makes other politicians look good by comparison even has a chance at becoming president.
It would be a good idea, but I don't see any practical and legal way to implement it.
The alternative, in a way, is "trial in the court of public opinion", which is what is going on right now. Romney is losing his trial when it comes to tax returns, and for good reason. Obama is winning his on the subject of his college transcripts -- the only people calling for them are those who have hated him for years and would never vote for him under any circumstances.
lol.
how?
We have a birther in the house........
Very true. It's also funny that, in yet another contradiction, Romney himself has demanded tax transparency of his opponents in the past, demanding that Ted Kennedy produce his returns in 1994 ("It's time the biggest-taxing senator in Washington shows the people of Massachusetts how much he pays in taxes.") and actually demanded that the wife of his opponent in 2002 produce her returns, yet he refuses to. This is the great thing about Romney as an opponent - there seems literally to be no issue in which he has not contradicted his current position in the past.
I agree this tax return stuff is useless noise, but putting "returners" on the same level as "birthers" is a bit of a stretch, especially considering Obama has already shown the documents everyone wanted to see.
Lets see if you can come up with a legitimate reason people need to see the exact numbers on his tax return. Give it your best shot, you might actually have a legitimate reason.
I'll let the earlier comment you made stand as evidence against you, projecting your conduct on others doesn't change the facts.
Its called ethical behavior. Finding a legal loophole in the tax laws to dodge taxes in a way obviously never intended but which the IRS concludes is technically legal until the law is later revised would for instance be relevant information for many people. If Romney has not experienced in reasonably recent years the percentage rate of taxation that many people in the U.S. actually have, that would actually be relevant information for some people by the way when he talks about the burden of high taxes on Americans. Among many other points of potential concern, someone aggressive and creative enough in limiting their tax burden may be reluctant to close such loopholes with future tax reform.
As I previous noted it goes beyond merely information about whether he complied with tax laws and also shows his prior financial associations and some information about his business dealings along with the general point of where he made his money in recent years. People might decide they are fine with his positions even so, but its helpful to know candidate x might be potentially biased in favor of industry or company y because they made a whole bunch of money off them in the past.
While he's dead, that doesn't make the arguments he made somehow less legitimate. You're essentially labeling him a returner for giving the reasons he did for releasing 12 years of tax returns, along with effectively George Will and a whole bunch of other respected conservatives who are generally members of the Republican Party for their position on Romney's tax returns.
The claim its about the exact numbers is plainly a utterly false argument again. We don't have any way to actually know if Romney was paying a rate of around 3% or actually above 20% for many of the years in question. The 20% options seems very unlikely given Romney's behavior in refusing to release the information, but Romney is certainly forcing those trying to come up to a conclusion to speculate for the moment since they lack enough data. (We lack the info on how much exactly Romney made each of these years as well as the nature of the income in question, which means you can't come up with a rough percentage with any degree of confidence for any of the years he has not released returns for.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_RomneyIn a November 3, 2006 press release, Romney stated that the account that funds the insurance benefits created in the "Welcome Home Bill" faced a deficit of $64,000. The Massachusetts legislature was out of session at the time of the shortfall. According to the press release, Romney transferred money from the governor's office budget to cover the deficit.
The "cause he must be hiding something" reason is a loonie conspiracy reason.
It's spelled out in post #57.
You're free to disagree with the reasoning, but that doesn't make it illegitimate.
Believing this implies that one thinks that nobody ever has anything to hide. Doesn't seem very realistic to me.
There's no "conspiracy" here. Just someone who has something he doesn't want others to see.
Huh? That post was saying it is stupid to ask for things which do not matter. Tax returns squarely fall into that category.
No, more like if someone's interviewing for a job at my company, I expect some standard information from him - past employment, education, possibly references, etc. If he adamantly refuses to tell me where he went to school, for example, that's surprising. Normally I wouldn't really care, because it probably doesn't tell me very much, but his refusal to give up standard info raises my eyebrows. I ask why he won't, and he says it will just make me not want to hire him. I call his reference and ask if maybe he knows why the adamant refusal, and the reference says "Well why would he tell you where he went to school? Just because everyone else does? I haven't heard a good reason!"
Would this not enter into your decision on hiring this potential employee?
LOL thanks for proving returners = birthers by saying "cause he must be hiding something, I just know it" is not a conspiracy.
What do you think he is hiding, the fact that he followed the law (just like you do) or that he pays a lot more in both real dollars and percentage to charity than you pay? Maybe he is hiding his payments to Al Quida? Is that what you think you will find?
My comment doesn't prove any such thing. It's simply a factual observation that your position implies that nobody ever hides anything, which is pretty unrealistic.
I've never speculated about what he is hiding. But given that he's taking a pretty big political hit by not releasing them, it's logical to believe that he thinks he'd take an even bigger hit if he showed them to the American people.
Assuming he's a rational person, of course.
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
Lets see if you can come up with a legitimate reason people need to see the exact numbers on his tax return. Give it your best shot, you might actually have a legitimate reason.
It is doubtful, since you appear to also be one of those loonie returners that are currently plaguing the political landscape (like the loonie birthers used to do before most of them woke up and realize how loonie they had been). But give it a shot, see if you can come up with one.
No, it does not, but I can see a loonie returner saying this to justify his conspiracy theory.
Same goes for Obama, you are therefor saying Obama is not a rational person.
Give it a shot, since YOU are the one saying he must be hiding something.
It is reasonable to say that demanding things which do not matter, such as tax returns, is silly. You do it anyway, though, and then use this as a good reason to demand the things which do not matter.