Obama to Pressure McCain on Openness

[tekisui]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13397.html

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) plans to release 10 years of his tax returns on Friday morning, pressuring his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to do the same, Politico has learned.

The move is part of a fresh aggressiveness from the Obama campaign, which wants to discredit the new posture by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the candidate of real change.

Disclosure, or transparency, is a big way for a candidate to make that case that during a campaign.

News reports from Alaska have said that Palin collected per-diem travel payments even when she was at home, and the Obama-Biden campaign wants reporters to see if she paid taxes on it.

McCain has disclosed little about his family finances. He files separately from his wife, Cindy, and has put out only his 2006 and 2007 returns. The campaign released her two-page tax for 2006, but not complete returns.

The Obama campaign calls this “a disappointingly low bar for disclosure.”

Obama has released tax forms for each year beginning in 2000.