Kevin Drum: Likely Many Years Where Romney Paid No Taxes

It makes no sense that Romney would stonewall on his tax returns unless he knows the political cost of releasing them is much wore than the cost of not doing so.

Romney lost his 1994 Senate bid at least partly because of Ted Kennedy’s devastating attacks on Bain. In 2002 he won his race for governor, but he got beat up pretty badly over Bain by Shannon O’Brien in the process. In 2008 he had to defend himself against Bain attacks again. In 2012 Bain haunted him yet again during the Republican primaries. So it’s not as if he was unaware that Bain is a problem. Why does he still not have a better defense?

As for the tax returns, I don’t know what the deal is. Here’s my latest guess, though: there are probably multiple years in which Romney paid no taxes at all. This would very definitively be a Bad Thing, so he really doesn’t have any choice but to take the heat instead. A multi-gazillionaire paying no taxes would open up a can of worms way too big not to choke on.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.