Trump Declares His Effective Tax Rate None Of Our Business

by JASmius



Oh, but it is our business, Donnie.  And it should be the business of every Trumplican as well.  Because, you see, if you cannot get the power you crave without OUR votes, then WE get a say in what of YOURS is and is not OUR business.  Because the POTUS is supposed to serve and answer to the States and the people, not the reverse.  And YOUR tax returns, and general transparency as part of the vetting process for the top job, are part of that.

You wanna know why we #NoneOfTheAbovers describe this man as a Big Government authoritarian statist?  Here ya go:

Joining Good Morning America this morning, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked Trump what his tax rate is, and Trump simply replied, “It’s none of your business.”

“You'll see it when I release but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible,” Trump said.

I'll buy that much.  Which, given his draconian tax plans, particularly on border taxes, is typical liberal hypocrisy.

But I digress:

The [m]illionaire also said he has no foreign bank accounts and emphasized he runs a “clean” business.

"I don’t have Swiss bank accounts," he said. "I don’t have offshore accounts."

How do we know that if you won't release your tax returns?  In other words, prove it, because your word ain't worth bleep -  which he has proven over and over and over again in this very campaign.

Trump went to say that he doesn’t believe that voters have a right to see his tax returns before they vote, but that he would gladly made them public once the audit is over. [emphasis added]

When it's too late.  Bleep that.

Y'see, if Trump released his tax returns, unredacted, and there were no bombshells or smoking guns in them, then fine, we check off that box and move on.  And if they were clean, it's difficult to imagine what reason he could possibly have for keeping them a secret when releasing them would remove that as a weapon to use against him from any direction.  But if there are bombshells or smoking guns - which it is logical to conclude there are from the fact that he refuses to release them before November 8th - then that matters and is a problem, not just for him but for the political party he has hijacked.  And he should not get one, single, solitary vote or profession of support from anybody in this country until he has done so.

Call it a litmus test.  A gesture of trust.  Because the vast majority of Americans do not trust Donald Trump because he has not earned it, and those that are stupid enough to do so anyway, for whatever motivation, should rescind the trust immediately until such time as he has proven himself worthy of it.

And this does not qualify:

Stephanopoulos asked Trump: “Yes or no, do you believe voters have a right to see your tax returns before they make a final decision?”

“I don't think they do. But I do say this, I will really gladly give them,” Trump answered, adding he has no problem releasing him and he hopes it's before the election. [emphases added]

Not good enough, Donnie.  Not for us, and not for Stephi, as the exchange got a wee bit "contentious,' judging by how Trump quickly reverted to his Twitter persona, calling the ABC anchor a "Clinton stooge" (or words to that effect).  Which he is, and is also utterly irrelevant to the issue of Trump's royal imperiousness and opacity regarding his personal financial information, which the voters absolutely have a right to know inside and out, backwards and forwards, side to side, and up and down long in advance of November 8th  Trust me, Donnie, there's gonna be a lot more such contentiousness where that came from.

But as I say, Trump's tax return stonewall matters, because as John Fund noted the other day, it is a ticking time bomb:

This is Trump’s bait-and switch-style at its most dangerous. Some Trump delegates and their alternates should write him an open letter demanding his unredacted tax returns. If he declines, they should declare they will abstain on the first ballot of the convention, driving him below the number needed to nominate. The delegates should not give Republicans a time bomb that could help take down GOP control of the House or the Senate, or both.

A friend of Donald Trump’s recently approached him to suggest that he will eventually have to release his tax returns, as every presidential nominee has for decades. The friend told Trump that he should do it before the GOP convention to ensure everyone can process what’s in the returns and help make any revelations “old news” by November. If Trump didn’t do that, he was warned, the odds of politicized leaks from his returns were high, citing several examples from the Obama era, including the illegal leaking of some of Romney’s tax information by the IRS in 2012.

“What will you do if the returns come out as part of an October surprise?” Trump was asked. Trump pondered the question and replied, “I’ll say they aren’t mine.” That stunning answer is the essence of Donald Trump. “It’s exactly what I’d expect him to say,” Fox Business’s Charlie Gasparino, who has known Trump for decades, told me.

But while Donald Trump has made a life out of bluffing his way past problems and cavalier comments, it’s harder to succeed doing that at the presidential level. Trump may be inching up in polls now, but one sharp wrong turn could send him spinning off the road. A political party that nominates Trump without seeing his tax returns could be committing political suicide and endangering dozens of down-ballot GOP candidates.

Even Superman met his match with kryptonite. [emphases added]

Here's the reality, Trumplicans: If you really and truly want your candidate to win in November, you need to force him to cough up his tax returns for his own good and benefit.  Again, if they're clean and there are no skeletons rattling around in them, why not release 'em now?  Disarm his critics?  Prove us (and them) wrong?  Wouldn't that be a hoot to rub it in our faces?  C'mon, you know you'd want to.

But he won't.  Which strongly suggests that they're NOT clean, that they are a necropolis of "skeletons," that they might even reveal that Trump is not nearly as rich and successful as he wants y'all to believe he is (thus torpedoing his "brand").  And that his arrogant, dismissive, "Let 'em eat cake" demeanor is further proof that he is every bit the lying, corrupt, narcissistic, Big Government, authoritarian, statist, tyrant-wannabe that we #NeverTrumpers have spot-on pegged him for the past eleven months.

And it might not cost him only the November election:

The political rules binding delegates to a first-ballot vote at the GOP convention respect the voice of the people. But that doesn’t mean the rules should become part of a potential suicide mission in which an unaccountable and non-transparent nominee is selected. Bob Beauprez, a former congressman and 2014 GOP nominee for governor of Colorado, told me: “We need answers and accountability. I think the idea of abstaining till we get them is a very good one.” [emphases added]

Should the occupants of the Brussels airport have had a say in whether or not Najim Laachraoui blew them to merry hell?  I think we could all agree on the affirmative.  So, metaphorically speaking, why should Republican convention delegates not get the equivalent choice?

Turns out that if there are riots in Cleveland three months from now, Trump and his tribe will have brought them entirely upon themselves.