Is Mitt Romney throwing the ball and hiding his hand?

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   stayingalivemomaposted 11 years ago

   "On Aug. 10, 2011, the night before Mitt Romney participated in a Republican primary debate in Iowa, the Republican nominee took an extraordinary step: He unloaded a boatload of stocks that may have been problematic in his run for the Oval Office. ....."
   
   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/2 … d%3D211410

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      Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There has been speculation on the timing of Mr. Romney's "divesting."
      
      It culd be coincidence that August 10, 2011 also happened to be a banner day in the stock market. Thus, Mr. Romney's selling of those stocks could have just as much - if not more -- to do with making money than cleaning house so he wouldn't get slammed politically.
      
      http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/58718/s … st-10-2011

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         stayingalivemomaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         that's a valid point Mighty Mom! thanks for commenting!

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            Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Without actually checking each stock (and can't do as some investments were part of funds, not held as individual stocks), it's hard to prove or disprove the financial windfall explanation.
            It's more likely the sell-off was politically motivated.
            Kinda like what Romney said in the primary debate about  talking to the owner of his landscaping company. "I can't have illegals working on my property! I'm running for office, for goodness sake!"
            Not that he has any moral or ethical or even legal concern about paying for services performed by illegal immigrants. It's ALL about how will it look for his campaign.
            

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      Credence2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      HI, SAM, It may be old news but that is why Mitt did not take full advantage of deductions available to him under the tax code, not because he is so generous but he needed to show that he paid taxes at a rate comparable to the rest of us. But when one looks at the possibility of his paying as little as 8 or 9 percent on his income, it makes a case that taxation policy for capital gains verses that for earned income needs to be revisited.

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         GA Andersonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Geesh Cred - you folks have to make up your mind - first you (as in Democrats,/Liberals/Progressives/Lefties), slam Romney for not paying enough in taxes - one of your standard bearers, Harry Reid, even claimed he paid no taxes, and now you are slamming him for paying to much in taxes.
         
         Which is it?
         
         I am not blind enough to say it is not a possibility - after all, we are talking about a politician, but you are discussing speculative, (at best - mud-slinging nonsense at worse), Democrat talking points like they are fact.
         
         Anybody offer any proof? Back-room conversations? (ie. 47% meeting) Which seem to be conveniently available for the "real" accusations. Disgruntled/Patriotic accountant with the "smoking" emails?
         
         If the party talking-point of the week was that he was not qualified because he had six toes on his left foot - forcing him to uncontrollably lean right... would you want to see them before you threw your support behind the "revelation?"
         
         GA

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            Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I haven't seen anyone anywhere saying Mitt Romney paid too much in taxes.
            Except Romney himself.
            He is the one who said he pays exactly what he owes, not a penny more.
            And if the did pay a penny more than he owed, that would disqualify him from being president.
            And yet, here he is, paying more than he owes for 2011.
            

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               GA Andersonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Couldn't not taking advantage of deductions be considered the same as paying too much?
               
               Isn't that the same as paying more than you need to, i.e.  too much? Or is this just a battle of semantics?
               
               I've seen that last Romney quote mentioned - I haven't seen it in context - but it does sound like a Romney gaffe.
               
               GA

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                  Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  I see where my post was not clear.
                  What I meant to say:
                  I am not seeing anyone here or in the media stating that 14% is too high of a tax rate for Mr. Romney to be paying. If anything, it's too low of a rate.
                  But yes, agreed that not taking the full deduction is, in effect, overpaying for 2011.
                  Thus, paying "too much" for this specific tax year.
                  Until, of course, the election is over and he amends his 2011 return to take the full deduction.
                  
                  It's all very disingenuous.

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                     JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     It's interesting... Romney is getting criticized here because he donated too much money to charity.
                     
                     Why do you think he will amend his return? Heck, even if he does, it's just more money to donate to charity next year.
                     
                     And no, capital gains taxes aren't too low of a rate. Raising cap. gains rates decreases investment.

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                        Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        No, Jaxson.
                        He is absolutely NOT getting criticized for giving too much to charity!
                        He is getting criticized for not taking the full deduction for said donations because to do so would put his tax rate at an unacceptably low rate.
                        
                        I have said before and will continue to say, he should have stuck to his guns and made the tax returns off limits.
                        What he did reveal just opens up more speculation on what really occurred on a year-by-year basis.
                        I would bet you $10,000 that 2011 is not the only year with some creative manipulation of deductions. But I don't have anything close to $10,000 to bet.
                        

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                           JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                           Right, his donations made it so his rate could have been lower than it has been, which put him between a rock and a hard place because of what he said earlier.
                           
                           But, people are criticizing him, because he donated too much. If he didn't donate as much, he would have had the higher rate and taken all of his deductions.
                           
                           So let's boil it down to the cause. It's the fact that Romney gave too much to charity, coupled with the fact that he paid more taxes than he had to. Is either one of those really a trait he should be criticized for?
                           
                           Seriously, paying more than he had to in taxes... you call that a creative manipulation, like it's a bad thing? Shouldn't it be a good thing if someone pays more tax than they have to?

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                              Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                              I've seen many complaints about not taking the full deductions for his donations, but have seen zero complaints about him actually donating too much money.
                              But that does not mean they are not out there.
                              
                              Please show a citation of anyone who is criticizing Romney for donating too much.
                              Or is that your interpretation?

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                                 JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                                 The criticisms of what his rate would be if he claimed all his deductions are based upon how much he donated. If he didn't donate so much, it wouldn't have been a problem. Therefore, the real problem, for those complaining, is that he donated too much.

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         2. 78

            Credence2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            GA, Mighty Mom, expresses it quite eloquently
            
            "He is absolutely NOT getting criticized for giving too much to charity!
            He is getting criticized for not taking the full deduction for said donations because to do so would put his tax rate at an unacceptably low rate"
            
            Why not release the earlier tax returns so we all can see if his "generous pattern' continues? he has been rather stealthy about the whole affair, if he would just come clean................
            
            He brings these things upon himself, did he really think that he was going to vie for the Presidency without this kind of issue having to be throughly vetted by the public?. He has been in presidential politics for many years now and should know better.

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               JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               In other words, he is being criticized for paying more taxes than the tax code requires him to pay.
               
               Do you not see hypocrisy in that? It's bad that he only pays 14%, but it's also bad that he paid 14% when he didn't have to?
               
               If he would just come clean, you would criticize him for something, anything, everything. You've proven that. If he paid 14%, you would criticize him for not paying enough. If he didn't take a certain deduction, you would criticize him for that. If he donated money to his church, you would criticize him for that(maybe not you, but some here have, because the LDS church is a 'cult').
               
               Lol, were you so insistent on Obama being thoroughly vetted?

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                  Credence2posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Jaxson, yes I insisted that Obama be vetted and he was, your rightwing buddies wanted proof of his boyscout merit badge, cittizenship, academic trnscripts. Every presidential contender has provided the tax info in recent campaigns, but your hypocritical buddies went far beyond and asked for materials and information of Obama not requested of previous presidents..
                  
                  I wonder why that is? Would you care to guess?
                  While he (Romney)is lnot legally required to provide this information, we on the left are going to stress that there is a political liability for him for not providing it. Let us see if he can weather this storm?

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                     JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Yeah, when Hillary claimed he wasn't a natural born citizen, people suddenly wanted proof. Not really that irrational.
                     
                     As for tax returns, they really are just a big smokescreen. It doesn't matter. We have over 20 million unemployed, but we are focusing on Mitt's taxes? How is that supposed to make sense.
                     
                     For me, vetting Obama would have been going over his record. That didn't happen though. I never saw or heard an Obama supporter in 2008 who could talk about his record in the senate.

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                        Josakposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        I can talk about his Senate record, the thing is it's dull which means it get's little interest, the prime reason being Senators do relatively little.
                        
                        The Romney record on the other hand is as a governor, a position with more direct influence, of course he only had 4 years experience where Obama had 11 years of legislative experience including state senator and US senator plus now 4 years of presidential experience.
                        
                        Romney left office after one term with a 34% approval rating and the person who followed him from the Republican party was destroyed in the election by about 20%.
                        
                        Romney also charged hundreds of millions in licenses to get his much vaunted budget, licenses that heavily impacted the poor.
                        
                        If you want to talk about records Romney is a dismal failure in terms of how Massachusetts judged him.
                        
                        Now for this "open minded" and "intelligent" individual we have someone who has pledged to change the US constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman the biggest attack on equal rights in decades and has vetoed bills to increase emergency contraction availability in hospitals.
                        
                        Now having made me recall all that you ruined my bipartisan mood and I intensely dislike him again.

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   JaxsonRaineposted 11 years ago

   Guys... Romney isn't the one who controls his investments. He's had a blind trust since he was governor. It is exactly for this reason why he put his money into a blind trust... he can't make any decisions about how it is invested, so he can't make any sweetheart deals, or even be accused of doing so because of personal investments.
   
   Except for the fact that people still accuse him of such, like this thread.
   
   I agree it was a silly thing for him to say about 'not paying a penny more', but talk about stretching an extreme-non-issue to its limit.

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      Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Below from an ABC News segment entitled "Mitt Romney's Blind Trust Not So Blind."
      
      http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romn … amp;page=2
      
      Is it not concerning that Romney Family Blind Trust is administered by their attorney?
      In addition to serving as the trustee for Romney's charitable foundation, Malt's law firm has represented Romney's interests in legal disputes.
      Malt served as the primary outside counsel to Romney's company, Bain Capital.
      Malt invested over $1 million of the candidate's money in the Solamere Founders Fund. Solamere is managed by Tagg Romney, Mitt's son.
      
      Cleta Mitchell, a Washington, D.C. election lawyer said it would be hard to explain how Romney's independent investment fund would orchestrate a $1 million investment with his son's firm without violating the terms of a standard blind trust -- terms that typically prohibit communication with family members.
      
      "What you're saying to the government is, I don't have any control over this, my spouse doesn't, and neither do my dependent children," Mitchell said. "The filer says, 'I don't know what's in it. I just get income from it.'"
      
      Said one prominent campaign lawyer who has advised past Republican presidential candidates on these matters: "I don't see how this would provide the required trustee independence under the executive branch blind trust requirements."
      
      Said another: "At the federal level, you have to have an absolute informational barrier and you're not supposed to influence anything with respect to the trust."
      
      Neither Republican election lawyer would agree to be named, for fear of reprisals from the Romney camp.
      
      In an email to ABC News, Romney's campaign acknowledged the arrangement does not live up to the strict standards for blind trusts established by the federal Office of Government Ethics.
      
      But the campaign was also quick to note that those rules do not apply to candidates for office -- they apply only to federal office holders.
      
      "The blind trust does NOT meet the exacting 'federal blind trust' standard," a campaign official wrote in response to questions from ABC News. "We have never called it a federal blind trust. If Governor Romney is elected president, that will change."
      
      I think the term for this is "hedging one's bets."
      

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         JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         It's still a blind trust... Romney doesn't make the decisions on how the money is handled.
         
         So what if it doesn't meet the requirements for federal office holders? He's not one. Doesn't change the fact that Romney wasn't the one selling stocks.

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            Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Don't you think it would be prudent to make sure you meet all the requirements of the highest federal office in the land BEFORE you apply for the job?

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               JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Now see, you're trying to make something a requirement that isn't a requirement. He has met all the requirements to be a candidate. You're trying to make it sound like he isn't qualified to be POTUS(where the requirements are the things like natural-born citizen, etc etc).

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