Yesterday, Senate Republicans voted, for a second time in two days, to continue their filibuster of the DISCLOSE Act, a bill that would simply require outside groups spending money on elections to tell the public where their money comes from. At the same time, not surprisingly, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in hot water for failing to disclose more than the minimum of personal tax returns and lying about his history at the company that made his fortune -- all while we know that a portion of his wealth was hidden in infamously secretive Swiss bank accounts.
Senate Republicans and Romney are spending a lot of time and energy this week to keep their financial histories secret. It's only natural to ask: What do they have to hide?
You would think the DISCLOSE Act would be an easy bill to pass. In fact, many Republican Senators were "for it before they were against it". What it does is simple: it requires any organization -- corporation, union, super PAC or non-profit -- that spends money influencing elections to report within a day any election-related expenditure of $10,000 or more. It also requires that these organizations make public the names of the individuals and corporations contributing $10,000 or more to fund this election spending. In short, all those front groups that have been pouring money into elections since Citizens United will have to disclose who their major donors are. Voters would know who was trying to tell them what.
This is not a partisan issue. Disclosure requirements, like those in the DISCLOSE Act, were endorsed as constitutional by the Supreme Court majority that handed down Citizens United. Even the conservative justices who saw no problem with more money in politics assumed that disclosure would be a check on the integrity of the election process.
But Republicans in Congress have been fighting tooth and nail to keep DISCLOSE from the books. Why? The fact that they might not want to publicize the motives of some of these super donors, and the fact that the new flood of outside political spending overwhelmingly favors conservatives, might have something to do with it.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is having disclosure problems of his own. It's standard practice for presidential candidates to release their past tax returns -- President Obama has made public his returns from the past dozen years. Even Romney called on his gubernatorial opponents in Massachusetts to release their returns. (In a classic Romney flip-flop, when he was later asked to hold himself to the same standard, he said his original demands had been wrong).
The only conclusion to draw from Romney's tax-return reticence is that there's something he doesn't want us to see. The recent revelations that Romney has told conflicting stories about when he left his job at Bain Capital might give us a taste of what he's kept hidden. And hiding part of his fortune in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and in Swiss bank accounts that have for centuries epitomized financial secrecy doesn't help.
The issue of financial disclosure isn't a sideshow to this election -- it's a big part of what this election is about. How can we trust senators who spend more time covering up the sources of election spending on their behalf than they do legislating? How can we trust a candidate who won't be open and honest with voters about the source of his personal fortune and the taxes he has paid?
Full disclosure should be a no-brainer in honest politics. The public knows that. Even the Supreme Court knows that. The only people who seem to be missing the message are the politicians who are desperately trying to win elections without telling voters who might be buying them.
Follow Michael B. Keegan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peoplefor
Bill Moyers: WATCH: Fighting Disclosure, Killing Democracy
Jonathan Backer: From Inconsistency to Incoherence
The Sunlight Foundation: Rebuttal to McConnell's War of Misinformation on DISCLOSE Act
As one who owns (2) LLCs and does his own taxes there is a simple response. Poppycock!
Bain paid him wages for 3 years when he wasn't working there? This is just plain laughable.
The IRS strictly defines "wages" as separate from other monetary gains from the business. If you "materially particpate" (IRS term for doing actual work for the day to day operations) you must receive "wages" that include state, federal and medicare taxes and social security payments. If you are a "passive" owner (don't actually work) you can receive profits or dividends without paying any of the payroll taxes because you did not actively work at the business.
Why would he pay the extra payroll taxes if he didn't have to?
...Because HE STILL WORKED THERE!.
Sociopath: "They do not consider other people's wishes, welfare or rights. They can be manipulative and may lie to gain personal pleasure or profit."
We will get a chance once again to let our money = our voices.
Chik-fil-a will feel the wrath of the American consumer, as did Mr Rciketts in Chicago, the Komen Foundation and Rush Limbaugh.
Mitch McConnell knows that we can speak with our wallets, too, and he does NOT want the playing field to be fair.
Many regular jobs now are asking for Facebook and other social network passwords. An office that high? You can't just have it, you have to prove your character via providing a record of past actions (actions speak louder than words and the words of a politician can rarely ever be taken seriously or at face value).
The question is, why are so many americans willing to allow someone with a proven anti-american record (swill bank accounts, tax dodging, even if legal, destruction of american jobs, etc) to run their country? He'll obviously place his own interests and the interests of his fellow rich before those of the american people (obvious because he very obviously thinks of those under him as being lesser, not as important, sheep, he shows it all the time with his out of touch comments).
We want someone with a clear record of destroying amercian jobs thus adding to economic strife as our president. Call me crazy but I fail to see the logic there...
It stopped boggling my mind many years ago. A large segment of the American electorate allows these operatives of the rich to do as they please every Congress- because :
this is my theory.... the detritus thousands of years of European serfdom.
The serf mentality of so many in our society can be the only explanation - why someone poor or of limited means consistently votes totally against their own interest and the interest of progressing our nation forward. You see people in regions of this country with no health and dental care in poor physical shape themselves calling healthcare paid for by their taxes- "socialism!" ... that is the definition of a serf. They are on their knees trying to break their backs to help the RICH- when they themselves have NOTHING! And they will fight tooth (if they have any) and claw to protect the RICh- because they have been conditioned to - by thousands of years of servitude to the rich.
Its the only answer.
However with so many lies about the president going uncontested by the Corporate media. Many people vote against self interests because of abortion, gun control myths, bigotry, religion, and unrepentant faith in FAILED supply side economics.
Now, he gets up in front of the willfully ignorant (some of whom call themselves politically savvy, ironically) and whines about "free stuff."
Please get a clue.
unions are people too and have been buying politicians for decades