{"id":14845,"date":"2016-05-25T19:30:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T19:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14845"},"modified":"2016-05-25T19:30:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T19:30:46","slug":"let-tradition-stand-regarding-tax-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14845","title":{"rendered":"Let &#8216;tradition&#8217; stand regarding tax returns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/trumpdonald_030116victoryspeech_getty.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-14846\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/trumpdonald_030116victoryspeech_getty-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"trumpdonald_030116victoryspeech_getty\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/trumpdonald_030116victoryspeech_getty-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/trumpdonald_030116victoryspeech_getty.jpg 645w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Call me a traditionalist.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wants Congress to enact legislation that requires presidential candidates to release their tax returns for public inspection.<\/p>\n<p>With all due respect to my home boy, I think the bill is an overreach.<\/p>\n<p>Wyden is responding to presumptive Republican presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump&#8217;s refusal to release his returns. Trump contends his returns are under audit by the Internal Revenue Service, to which the IRS has responded &#8220;so what?&#8221;; an audit doesn&#8217;t preclude the release of the returns.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/business-a-lobbying\/281194-dem-senator-offers-bill-to-require-candidates-to-release-tax-returns\">http:\/\/thehill.com\/business-a-lobbying\/281194-dem-senator-offers-bill-to-require-candidates-to-release-tax-returns<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The tradition has been for presidential candidates to release their returns. They&#8217;ve been doing it since 1976, the first election after the Watergate constitutional crisis that forced President Nixon to resign.<\/p>\n<p>My own sense is that <em>tradition<\/em> ought to stand.<\/p>\n<p>I believe candidates&#8217; refusal to release those returns give voters a key gauge of their character. It gives voters a chance to determine a candidate&#8217;s trustworthiness. It enables voters to use such refusal as a measuring stick as to whether the candidate deserves their ballot-box endorsement.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, Wyden has a dog in this fight. He has endorsed Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in turn has been blasting Trump to smithereens over his refusal to release his tax returns.<\/p>\n<p>I get Sen. Wyden&#8217;s bias.<\/p>\n<p>I also believe &#8220;tradition&#8221; ought to stand as a <em>de facto<\/em> rule. Let the presidential candidates decide whether to comply &#8230; and then\u00a0let voters decide on the correctness of their refusal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Call me a traditionalist. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wants Congress to enact legislation that requires presidential candidates to release their tax returns for public inspection. With all due respect to my home boy, I think the bill is an overreach. Wyden is responding to presumptive Republican presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump&#8217;s refusal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14845\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let &#8216;tradition&#8217; stand regarding tax returns<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[1424,2139,2343,4013,6110],"class_list":["post-14845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-irs","tag-ron-wyden","tag-tax-returns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14847,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845\/revisions\/14847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}