Democrats have just released Trump’s taxes, their last attack on him before losing control of the House. They may regret this and sooner than they think.
Trump was rich when he entered office and served only four years. There are millions of Americans who are far more curious how people who have held office for decades have become wildly rich on a public sector salary.
Paul Bedard writes at the Washington Examiner:
Voters seek revenge on Democrats who released Trump taxesVoters are not in a very Christmas-y mood when it comes to Washington’s punishment politics.In fact, they’d like to see some payback.While a majority of voters are OK with House Ways and Means Committee Democrats releasing former President Donald Trump’s federal income taxes, they also feel that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.Asked in a new Rasmussen Reports survey if the incoming GOP House majority should release the taxes of Democrats who voted to reveal Trump’s taxes, 54% said yes.And it wasn’t just Republicans, 63%, and independents, 53%, but included more Democrats than not. Rasmussen said that 45% of Democrats wanted the taxes of the Trump critics released to 38% who didn’t.The partisan divide was much wider on the overall question of releasing Trump’s taxes, which is to be completed Friday by House Democrats. Some 53% said they approved of the release to 40% who disapproved.Democrats especially were supportive, with 79% approving of the release. Among Republicans, 63% disapproved.
House Republicans must have read that poll, because they’re already reacting.
Joel Pollak of Breitbart News reports:
Republicans on Trump Tax Returns: Democrats ‘May Regret It Sooner Than They Think’Republicans in the minority on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee declared Friday that there had been “no legitimate legislative purpose” for the Democratic majority to release Donald Trump’s tax returns.It was the first time Congress had ever obtained and released the federal tax returns of a private individual. Democrats claimed that they needed the returns as they considered future tax legislation. But the former president argued in court — to no avail — that Democrats were overstepping the separation of powers.
Pollak links to this dissenting statement from the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee:
Most importantly, the Committee Majority’s action set a dangerous new precedent. It is apparent from the proceedings that the Committee Majority set out with the goal of obtaining and publishing the former President’s full tax returns. Everything since then has been a search for a rationale or justification that would be acceptable to the courts. Committee Republicans are not focused on whether the former President should have made his tax returns public, which has been tradition. Nor are Committee Republicans focused on the accuracy of those tax returns – that is for the IRS to determine in the ongoing audits of the former President.Committee Republicans are concerned that this politically motivated action unleashes a dangerous new political weapon reaching far beyond the former President and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans.Going forward, the new precedent is that the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business or labor leaders, or even Supreme Court justices.
Democrats finally finally got their white whale and there was nothing to it.
From FOX News:
The analysis within the reports conclude that any lack of proper taxation on Trump’s earnings appears to have been ultimately a failing of the IRS and not the result of pressure or obfuscation from the White House.Trump’s family of enterprises used reported losses, foreign tax credits, deductions, charitable donations and many other financial maneuvers to great effect in offsetting taxation on profits.
Now let’s see Pelosi and Biden’s tax returns.
Democrats set this precedent. They should be made to live by it.
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