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CNS News
Boehner:
Americans ‘Asking Where Are the Jobs,’ Not Where Romney’s Tax Returns
Are
By
Elizabeth Harrington
July 18,
2012
(CNSNews.com)
– Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said demands that
Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney release additional tax returns beyond the two
years of
returns he has disclosed is a “side show,” designed to distract from
the real
issues.
At a
Capitol Hill Club press conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday,
Boehner
said, “The American people are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’ They’re not asking where
in the hell the tax
returns are.’”
At the
press conference of House Republicans, Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan
(R-Wis.) also said questions about when the presumptive Republican
presidential
nominee resigned from his private equity firm Bain Capital and probes
into his
foreign bank accounts are “merely distractions.”
A reporter
asked Ryan, “You talked a lot about transparency and Democrats are
calling on
Mitt Romney to release his tax returns in the name of transparency. Do you think he should?”
“I’ll refer
you to the Romney campaign on those things, we’re here to talk about
the
sequester,” said Ryan, referring to the automatic defense cuts that
will take
effect Jan.1, 2013 unless Congress acts.
“The
sequester is real,” he said, “and the sequester is putting a chilling
effect on
hiring.”
“It’s
putting a chilling effect on military families,” he said. “I had a doctor at the VA
[Veterans
Administration] in Walworth County come up to me this weekend saying,
‘Am I
going to get laid off in January?
What’s
happening to my family?’”
“That’s the
kind of transparency we’re expecting from our government right now and
these
side issues are merely distractions from the task at hand, which is the
president is not leading and, as a consequence of that, Americans are
hurting,”
said Ryan.
It was at
that point when Speaker of the House Boehner said,
“Well, listen, listen.
The American people are asking, ‘Where
are
the jobs?’ They’re
not asking where in
the hell the tax returns are.”
“This is
another side show intended to draw the American people’s attention away
from
the real issue,” said Boehner. “And
the
real issue is the president’s economic policies have failed, they’ve
actually
made things worse. And,
as a result, he
can’t run on his record.”
“He’s got
to try to run on something else,” said Boehner.
“And so whether it’s the tax returns,
whether it’s Bain Capital, you’ll
see every distraction known to man because the president can’t run on
his
record.”
Another
reporter again raised the issue, asking, “It’s not just Democrats that
are
asking, a lot of Republicans are, including members of your conference
saying
it’s time to get this issue—”
“It is not
about the tax returns, it’s about the economy,” Boehner said.
“The
American people vote with their wallet.
Bye,” he said, ending the press
conference.
Many
Democrats, including personnel in the Obama campaign, have been pushing
Romney
to release more tax returns. Obama
Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter called for Romney to disclose
more
returns, saying he has either been misleading the American people or
misrepresenting his position at Bain to the Securities and Exchange
Commission,
“which is a felony,” she said.
The Romney
campaign attests that it has already gone “above and beyond” the
disclosure
requirements by releasing his 2010 income tax return and an estimate of
his
2011 return (back in January); Romney has promised to release the full
return
for 2011 soon.
“These
returns show that he’s paid over $6 million dollars in taxes,” Romney
Senior
Advisor Kevin Madden told CBS’s Face the Nation.
“Seven
million dollars of his income went to charity, which is appropriately
16
percent of his income,” said Madden.
“He’s also filed hundreds and hundreds
of pages of financial disclosures
with the FEC.”
During the
2008 presidential race, Republican John McCain (Ariz.), running against
Obama,
released only two years of tax returns.
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video, read the story and others at CNS News
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