Hypocrisy: Reid, Pelosi, Wasserman Schultz Refuse to Release Tax Returns

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Hypocrisy: Reid, Pelosi, Wasserman Schultz Refuse to Release Tax Returns

By: Curt | 35 views

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), have been some of the most vocal voices that have called on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

In stunning examples of hypocrisy, though, Pelosi, Reid, and Wasserman-Schultz all refused to release their tax returns when asked by McClatchy Newspapers.

“The leader has filed a complete financial disclosure report as required by law that includes financial holdings, transactions and other personal information,” Pelosi spokesman Read More http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/hypocrisy-reid-pelosi-wasserman-schultz-refuse-to-release-tax-returns/

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Most members of Congress keep their tax returns secret

 

By Kevin G. Hall and David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

 

WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Pelosi was emphatic. Mitt Romney’s refusal to release more than two years of his personal tax returns, she said, makes him unfit to win confirmation as a member of the president’s Cabinet, let alone to hold the high office himself.

 

Sen. Harry Reid went farther: Romney’s refusal to make public more of his tax records makes him unfit to be a dogcatcher.

 

They do not, however, think that standard of transparency should apply to them. The two Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives are among hundreds of senators and representatives from both parties who refused to release their tax records. Just 17 out of the 535 members of Congress released their most recent tax forms or provided some similar documentation of their tax liabilities in response to requests from McClatchy over the last three months. Another 19 replied that they wouldn’t release the information, and the remainder never responded to the query.

 

The widespread secrecy in one branch of the government suggests a self-imposed double standard. Yet while American politics has come to expect candidates for the presidency to release their tax returns, the president isn’t alone in having a say over the nation’s tax laws. Congress also stands to gain or lose by the very tax policies it enacts, and Read More

 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/18/156632/most-members-of-congress-keep.html#storylink=omni_popular

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History of congressional disclosure of tax returns is spotty

 

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

 

WASHINGTON — Congress seldom has volunteered to require its members to disclose more of their finances.

Members of Congress have never been required to disclose their tax returns in public. For much of the Senate’s existence, members simply put their tax returns in sealed envelopes that were kept for private record. That was the extent of financial disclosure.

In fact, voters didn’t even choose members of the Senate for the nation’s first 137 years. Financial scandals early in the 20th century changed that, revealing conflicts of interest and patronage when state legislatures chose the wealthy or their surrogates to serve.

“Quite frankly, direct election didn’t change things,” Senate historian Donald Ritchie said. “It had some impact, but the first election, held in 1914, all the incumbents that were running got re-elected. The voters didn’t choose a different set of people than the legislatures did.”

Public pressure for greater financial disclosure returned at the end of World War II.

In 1946, there were revelations that key members of the House of Representatives and Senate agriculture committees had received inside information that they’d turned into profit by investing in commodities. That’s similar to the behavior of lawmakers during the 2008 financial crisis, who, after private meetings with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, took steps to protect their investments based on knowledge that the American public lacked.

President Harry S Truman pressed for financial disclosure Read More

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/18/156631/history-of-congressional-disclosure.html#storylink=cpy