Gibson writes: "It'd be the same as a potential employee who refuses, under any circumstance, to take a drug test for employment, but assures his would-be bosses that he's never smoked a joint in his life."
Mitt Romney. (photo: Getty Images)
What Stoners and Mitt Romney Have in Common
18 August 12
Reader Supported News | Perspective
very smart weed smoker knows that while you're applying for jobs, it's best to stay clean. While all smokers have unique remedies they swear by when it comes to getting THC out of your system in a hurry, we all know it's best to just lay off until after passing that drug test when you're looking for work. Mitt Romney should've kept his financial records clean in preparation for applying for the nation's toughest job.
Mitt Romney has been eyeing the presidency for the better part of a decade. Knowing that his dad set a precedent for presidential candidates' releasing multiple years of tax returns, one would think Romney would have used the years in between presidential runs to be honest with his accounting and file clean tax returns if he really wanted the nation's highest office. There's no test tougher than the arduous ones presidential candidates take, and a smart candidate makes sure he "pisses clean" when it comes to his own finances.
Harry Reid may have made an irresponsible comment when refusing to cite the name of the source who swore that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years, but he was smart to keep the spotlight focused on the candidate who refuses to tell voters how much taxes he really paid. Even John McCain has defended Romney, saying that there's nothing bad in the 23 years of tax returns he saw when he was vetting the former Massachusetts governor as a potential running mate. But even so, Mitt Romney has refused to come clean and settle the discussion by revealing his tax returns. There's nothing worse than not paying taxes for ten years, except for whatever Mitt Romney is hiding, apparently.
The information Mitt Romney is refusing to disclose may have something to do with the right-wing death squad money that he used to finance Bain Capital when he first started the company. Or it could be an even bigger tax break for another overly luxurious item, like the $77,000 loss he claimed on his wife's dressage horse in 2010. It could be a year or two of negative federal corporate tax rates for Bain Capital, similar to General Electric and Wells Fargo. Maybe some of those tax returns reveal millions of dollars stashed in overseas tax-free accounts in countries like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. None of us will know, until Romney just releases his tax returns and takes the hits. He's going to have to, eventually.
If Mitt Romney wants to present himself as a sound businessman who knows how to handle the nation's budget, costs and expenses, how can we take him seriously if he won't even disclose more than two years of tax returns? It's something voters have a right to know, if they're going to put the world's biggest economy in the hands of this guy. It'd be the same as a potential employee who refuses, under any circumstance, to take a drug test for employment, but assures his would-be bosses that he's never smoked a joint in his life. If you're so clean, and if you really want the job, just pee in a cup and be done with it.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
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And Ann Rmoney adds: "Mitt's integrity is just golden". Assuming that she was there when Mitt was running for MA gov in 2002, she must have known that he lied about being a resident of MA, which required 7 years residency. Mitt had taken residence in UT (Olympics) and paid taxes there, not in MA. Under extreme pressure, he paid back taxes to MA, ran and was elected MA gov. Mitt does whatever is expedient, whatever will get him over at the time, like for instance, adopting the EXTREME RIGHT WING policies that we saw during the GOP debates.
The only thing GOLDEN about Mitt is his pocketbook, and... his forked tongue.
His excuse is a cover-up.
Maybe the horse should pee in a cup for Willard Romoney
The horse's urin would be cleaner than Mitt's. I still can't believe that nobody, but NOBODY, has questioned the $77,000 spent on Refalca - which must be a talking horse.
Never trust a man, who starts a sentence with "Trust Me"
Unfortunately that does not change the fact that Barack Obama--has out-Bushed George W. And has been a poor president.
Mirror, mirror on the wall...
More Wall Street Bailouts & more troops in the Middle East.
If Pres Obama green-lights an nuclear attack against Iran before election day will that convince you that he is more evil--than lesser???
Or does his complexion get him a pass for that too among the guilty liberal set?
Naw, don't worry, he'll likely wait till after the election to show his true colors--unless political expediency dictates otherwise...
Like FDR--and the Nuremberg Tribunals-- I oppose aggressive war, and wonder about this new Green, Gay, pro-war, pro-Wall Street Democratic Party.
I don't know how to get the country out of the corruption of electoral money controlling our government but Robme and R'Ayan will be ruinous.
The Wall St. bailouts were started by GWBush.
President Obama has pulled troops OUT of Iraq and 40,000 will be WITHDRAWN out of Afghanistan by the end of 2012.
Bush never had the minority senate leader declare that the number one priority of the republicans will be to make sure that President Obama's term is a failure. The republicans could care less about the economy and the American people. All they cared about was President Obama being a one term president. I want to thank you for helping them try to accomplish just that.
I oppose President Obama because he expanded Bush's Wall Street Bailouts & did not close Guantanamo & adopted Cheney's totalitarian Unitary Executive doctrine. I back single payer healthcare, Obama--like Romney--wants taxpayer subsides of HMO health insurance cartels.
I knocked on doors for George McGovern in Keene NH in 1972, and as a kid attended the August 28, 1963 March on Washington--mad e famous by the words "I have a Dream."
Somehow, I do not think that dream included having a president of color who continued so many of George Bush's policies.
Many of you make the racist assumption that just because Harvard graduate Obama has a black complexion therefore he must be progressive. He is not and you have been had.
Besides debating what the word 'is' means, Clinton said, "I did not have sex with that women."
What Romney is trying to get away with is the parsing of exactly what 'paying taxes' means. He said that he paid 13+% of his income in taxes. He did not say he paid that amount in Federal taxes. He could be referring to all the property taxes he paid on all his homes and properties. He could be including the sales taxes he paid on all the luxury items he bought, I'm sure he had to pay a sales tax on 'buying' a special horse.
In his mind he feels completely honest in using that white board of his to simply add up all the 'taxes' he has paid and do some very simple math.
If a company like GM can wind up not paying any corporate income taxes while blatantly celebrating multi-billion dollar profits, a Romney can easily work the system likewise.
The pressure - if there really is any - is on the liberals. They are trying so hard to make an issue of this & he is ignoring them. They may be forced to try & make a case for Obama's based on his track record &, since they are avoiding it like the plague, they obviously don't want any part of that.
Profit should be related to productivity. But, that would take a creature who understood what it meant to have an opposing thumb, to know the difference that made a difference, to have hindsight and knowledge of the difference between symmetry and asymmetry. Read Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind and you will realize why the trauma remains. Besides, he is a criminal, not even a step above (Ron Paul, for instance). For what ignorance there is about symmetry and asymmetry, one is no better than the other, and you cannot get rid of either, not even for usurious purposes related to tax or victimless crime. Just what is the US war on Latin America? http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/11395-the-us-war-on-latin-america
Ever hear of Indira Singh? William Binney?
It was all Wages & Standard Deductions anyway.
If I needed to release them, could I get copies from the IRS?
Lot better looking to have them, then have to cave.
Loved his wife's smile. She could care less as long as her lifestyle continues as it is if not better. Can you imagine her broke, having to pay rent, food actually make it herself, even know what the utilities are. No maids, nannys, no butlers or gardeners. Her car would have to be on a parking space. Oh No
PROVE IT!
From: Human Resources Department
Re: Tax Disclosure
Dear Mr. Romney:
Be advised that thorough financial disclosure is a precondition for
employment in the position that you seek. We will also require a
medical examination, a drug test, and at least two references;
specifically from the State of Massachusetts and from Bain Capital. We
know that you worked there, and we need to know what you did there.
Please respond soonest. Compliance is not optional.
Signed,
Human Resources Department
And if we fiund that you lied in any way, shape or form, then you will be summarily executed!
As for the 'stoner' analogy, well, his history (for example bullying gays and ridiculing people for fun) doesn't reveal any secret substance abuse (other than money & job exporting) - truly if he's a 'druggy' in any character sense, it seems to me he's addicted only to... lies. Fantasies within his bubble. More and more, greater & greater 'tolerance' in dishing out pure tripe and then denying it or flipping it.... after all, nobody challenges it.
For sure, Mr. betting man (maybe that's his 'poison'?)... perhaps you'd be best off taking your medicine now, and telling a truth or two, rather than hiding your dirty little secrets. They'll come out, anyway, with or without your spin and the SuperPac lie pushers.
Yes, I can appreciate the metaphor of staying clean prior to a job interview, but the premise of this piece rubs me wrong as it implicitly endorses normalization of the failed, brutal, wasteful War on Drugs by assuming that such practices are not only commonplace, but reasonable.
Incidentally, the War on Drugs (and by extension, its offspring the War on Terror) are exactly the place in American politics where all the "conservative" rhetoric about freedom, the nanny state and job-killing overregulation is suddenly abandoned and their logic goes topsy-turvy. Suddenly, citizens can no longer be trusted to make decisions for ourselves, pretrial confiscation of assets is not only permissible but expected and the government is entitled to deprive citizens of their liberty on the flimsiest of pretexts. I'm not minimizing the ill effects of drug abuse and or the horrors of addiction, but forty years ago we had more pot smokers and less bathtub speed, more support for education and far fewer prisoners and I believe less opiate addiction and prescription drug abuse.
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