White House: Romney’s Father Established Tradition of Tax Disclosure
Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce report at ABCNews: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/white-house-romneys-father-established-tradition-of-tax-disclosure/
White House press secretary Jay Carney today took some questions about events on the campaign trail . . .
____ Noting that the centerpiece of the president’s tax policy has been an argument that “everyone needs to pay their fair share.” With that in mind, a reported asked about Mitt Romney today saying that his effective tax rate is “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” Romney’s estimated net worth is said to be above $200 million.
“What does the president think of that?” the reporter asked.
Carney said that the president agrees with billionaire Warren Buffett that those “who are making millions of dollars, millionaires and billionaires, say, should not pay a lower effective tax rate than middle-class Americans. As Warren Buffett put it, he should not pay a much lower tax rate than his own administrative assistant, his own secretary….This only illuminates what he believes is…an issue, which is that everybody who’s working hard ought to pay their fair share… — and that includes millionaires who might be paying an effective tax rate of 15 percent when folks making $50(,000) or $75,000 or $100,000 a year are paying much more. He thinks we ought to fix that, and that is an element of the approach he takes in his economic proposals, as you know.”
Asked why Romney should have to release his tax records, Carney said, “it’s not for us to call on someone to release his tax records, but it is an established tradition for presidential candidates to release their tax records. Then-Senator Obama did, released multiple years of his tax records, and obviously has released his tax records, as tradition dictates, since he’s been president. And the president’s not unique in that regard. President George W. Bush, President Clinton, nominees for each party — for years and years and years, I think going back to 1976, this has been a very standard tradition. And obviously we think it’s a good tradition, and that’s why then-Senator Obama released his tax records going back, I think, six or seven years when he was a candidate for president in the 2008 election cycle.”
“I think it was a tradition that was initiated by then-presidential candidate George Romney back in 1968, who released 12 years of tax records in ’68, as I understand it,” Carney said.
read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/white-house-romneys-father-established-tradition-of-tax-disclosure/
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