IF TRUMP HAS NOTHING TO HIDE, LET’S SEE THOSE TAX RETURNS
Where is an unscrupulous Democratic dirty trickster when you need one?
I’m imagining some little nerd operating out of his mom’s basement who fabricates a convincing set of Donald Trump tax returns and “leaks” them on the internet. Perhaps the bogus documents would “prove” that Trump paid no income tax or that he took deductions for charitable contributions he never made. Or they’d show that he isn’t really a billionaire.
In my fantasy, these documents are such convincing fakes that the Trump team would be forced to debunk them in the only way possible — by releasing his real tax returns.
Or, for all I know, the actual returns are so bad it would be less damaging to let the fake ones fester on the internet.
I want to see Trump’s real tax returns. And so should you, even if you love Trump. Only a sucker would settle for a candidate’s word when there are documents that can prove whether that candidate is telling the truth.
I want to see Trump’s tax returns for the same reason I wanted to see the emails that Hillary Clinton did not turn over for archiving. When a politician decides he or she doesn’t want me to see something, that just makes me want to see it all the more.
If getting the facts about Clinton’s emails is important, so is getting the facts about Trump’s tax returns.
As a matter of law, Clinton was required to turn over emails concerning her official actions. Well, as a matter of law, Trump is required to pay a certain amount in taxes — or be able to document, within the law, why he was exempt from paying certain taxes.
There are lots of reasons we expect people to pay taxes. Here’s a real important one: Paying taxes is crucial to our national security. If we’re going to have the world’s strongest and most effective military, we’ve got to pay for it (now or later).
Presidential candidate Trump last week came out with his proposal to strengthen and expand our military. He said he would pay for this plan by cutting waste and streamlining the bureaucracy.
Folks, whenever you hear a candidate promise to pay for something by ending unspecified waste, fraud and abuse, do not believe them. If you do, you’re a sucker.
Make them itemize the exact waste, fraud and abuse.
Trump has not done that. Even if he does do that, our military still will need enormous amounts of money to pay for defense. And even if we continue to run up deficits, an enormous amount of the money that pays for our defense will have to come from tax collections.
That only happens when people — including ordinary people like me and alleged billionaires like Donald Trump — pay what they owe in taxes. If Trump has not paid his fair share in taxes, then he is not contributing his fair share to America’s defense.
I’m not going to insist that everybody who wants to be commander-in-chief must have served in the military.
By design, America’s commander-in-chief is a civilian. But if someone wants to be president, he or she must have done their bit to contribute to the vast cost of our defense. That includes paying what’s owed for weapons systems as well as paying what’s owed for veterans’ benefits.
Has Donald Trump done that? We don’t know, because he won’t release his tax returns — something every other modern, major candidate has done. Trump is hiding something. And it might be the fact that he is cheating our military and our veterans.