During the opening night of the Democratic convention, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid again swung at Mitt Romney for refusing to release more tax returns.
“When you look at the one tax return he has released it’s obvious why. It’s obvious why there’s only been one. We learned that he pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families; we learned that he chose Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island tax shelters over American institutions,” Reid said Tuesday. “We could only imagine what new secrets would be revealed if he showed the American people a dozen years of tax returns — like his father did.”
The Nevada Democrat ignited a firestorm late July after he said an informed Bain investor told him that Romney hadn’t paid taxes for a decade. Lacking evidence for his claim, Reid faced fierce criticism, but repeatedly stood by his charge, putting the Republican nominee on defense for weeks over his taxes.
Romney has released a partial tax return for 2010 and says he’ll release only one more year. He has emphatically denied Reid’s claim, and the senator did not repeat it Tuesday night.
Tax fairness is a central plank of the Obama campaign’s re-election bid.
“Today’s Republican Party believes in two sets of rules — one for millionaires and billionaires and another for the middle class,” Reid said. “And this year they’ve nominated the strongest proponent and clearest beneficiary of this rigged game: Mitt Romney.”
Sahil Kapur
Sahil Kapur is a congressional reporter for TPM. He previously covered politics and public policy for numerous publications including The Guardian and The Huffington Post. He can be reached at sahil [at] talkingpointsmemo.com.
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