Mitt Romney may have released his tax returns, but there’s more than one lesson he can learn from the legacy of George Romney

Just before his South Carolina shellacking by a thrice-resurrected Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney fielded a question during a debate about whether he would release his tax returns. Romney hemmed and hawed around an actual answer:

“At the very beginning, I indicated that I didn’t have any plans to release my tax returns and then it became clear that that was of great interest to everyone… There was such an interest in tax returns, I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ Hadn’t planned on doing it, but there’s interest, so I said

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The rise of Rick Santorum forces Republicans to confront some uncomfortable truths

Put aside Rick Santorum’s opposition to contraception, which he has described as “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Put aside the not-so-subtle racism of his declaration, “I don’t want to make black peoples’ lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Put aside his assertion that the right to privacy “doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution,” blaming it for the evils of the sexual revolution, contraception, abortion, and now gay marriage.

Put aside his opposition to the Supreme… Read more…

One World-Historical Figure’s 2012 Campaign to Transform America, Fundamentally

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Newt Gingrich, “advocate of civilization,” “arouser of those who form civilization,” and “leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces,” (his words, not mine) is on a mission to fundamentally and profoundly transform America.

Newt has never been shy about his grand ambitions. “I want to shift the entire planet,” he declared to the Washington Post way back… Read more…

The quad married, thrice Sports Illustrated, ex-Mrs. Billy Joel owes half a mill to Uncle Sam

There’s nothing we here at Tax Rascal love more than a celebrity tax scandal to distract us from the Tolstoyean tax drama of Congress. The latest celebrity to get on the IRS’s bad side is Christie Brinkley, the supermodel and former Uptown Girl.

The three-time swimsuit edition cover girl reportedly owes the IRS $531,000 in back taxes. In response, the government agency placed a tax lien against her Long Island home on November 21.

The New York Daily News reports that “the lien is on… Read more…

Former Senator Judd Gregg articulates an evolving Republican position on debt and taxes

As Tax Rascal predicted, the super committee’s negotiations failed. After months of dramatic, closed-door democracy, the panel of twelve congressmen came up empty handed.

No one was surprised.

Still, it may not have been all in vain. Of notable significance, not to say a foreshadowing of a potential sea change in Republican fiscal policy, was republican senators Toomey and Hensarling’s willingness to “raise revenue” – aka raise taxes…

And alarm bells of change are now sounding from other corners too.

Judd Gregg, a former Republican governor and senator who served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee from 2005 to… Read more…

Mitt Romney is betting on a boring tax plan to keep him ahead of the pack in 2012

There was a time when tax policy actually had the starring role in the 2012 Republican Presidential race.

That was before Sharon Bialek dolled up for the hungry cameras, while her attention-grubbing attorney punned lamely about “stimulus packages”, and related the tale of citizen Cain slipping a hand up her skirt and pulling her head toward his crotch.

That was also before Rick Perry fumbled the presidential pigskin once again as he let the Department of Energy slip from his addled brain with an epically infantile “Oops”.

All anyone could talk about then… Read more…

The super committee deadline draws near. Congress looks no closer to a compromise

The drama on Capital Hill ratchets up this week as the super committee nears the November 23 deadline by which time it must come up with $1.2 trillion in savings.

The latest development comes as Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican on the super committee, offers up a GOP plan to raise $290 billion in taxes over the next ten years. That’s not a typo: a Republican senator proposes to raise taxes.

His plan cuts deductions for mortgage interest, charitable donations, and state and local taxes, targeting those who itemize deductions for a tax hike. Hardest hit will be taxpayers in the… Read more…

GE’s accounting and lobbying prowess exemplifies the influence of corporations over government

Jack Donaghy, the irrepressible network executive of 30 Rock played by Alec Baldwin, may have moved to Kabletown last season, but it doesn’t sound like the real General Electric is doing too bad without him, especially in light of the news last March that GE paid zero taxes in 2010.

The top corporate marginal tax rate in the United States is 35%, nominally one of the highest in the world. And yet, thanks to corporate tax loopholes, GE paid absolutely nothing in taxes for 2010, making their effective tax rate the equivalent of zero. Not only did the company not pay… Read more…

The right wing Tea Party protests may ultimately pack more of a punch than Occupy Wall Street

Now that Occupy Wall Street is approaching the two month benchmark (and has even survived its first snowstorm), it has become common for pundits to draw comparisons between it and the Tea Party movement. Both were born of populist anger over the recession and government bailouts of U.S. banks and both have expressed that anger through showy protests that garnered considerable media attention.

Even our esteemed Vice President, never one to leave anything to subtlety, has made the connection between the two movements. Speaking of Occupy Wall Street he said, “Look, there’s a lot in common… Read more…

Rick Perry for President hits a hurdle with his optional flat tax

Locked in a competition with Herman Cain to see who can propose the most crazily unrealistic tax reform that panders to the delusions of the Republican base, Rick Perry delivered a speech in South Carolina Tuesday in which he outlined his plan for (kind of) scrapping the current tax code and offering taxpayers the choice of an optional 20% flat income tax.

At the CNN debate in Las Vegas, during which Perry seemed to awake from his stupor while Herman Cain took fire over apples and oranges, Perry promised a tax reform plan that could compete with the pizza mogul’s 9-9-9 plan. “I’ll… Read more…