Dems Push Bill Requiring 10 Years of Tax Returns from Presidential Candidates

In a clear election year public relations move, Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI), the leading Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, is pushing a bill that would require disclosure of 10 years of tax returns, as well as of offshore accounts or investments in non-publicly-traded companies.

“The stunning lack of transparency from someone in pursuit of the highest office in the country highlights the need to change the law to require fuller disclosure,” said Levin. “For decades, presidential candidates have voluntarily provided a thorough accounting of their tax returns and finances, as they should. But we clearly cannot continue to rely solely on the willingness of a candidate to disclose fully what the public has a right to know about the candidate’s financial record.”

Democrats are nowhere to be found with regard to Barack Obama’s serious transparency problem. First off, Obama only released 7 years of tax returns in 2008, which would have made him out of compliance with this law; now, of course, they want 10 years because he’s been in office for three. How convenient.

Second, Obama has a transparency problem that far exceeds Romney’s tax issue. Obama’s administration is perhaps the least transparent in American history. Obama has invoked executive privilege on Fast and Furious, refused to release full White House visitor logs, covered up health care negotiations, stonewalled on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac documents, and even changed transparency standards on FOIA request responses.

But they find time to bash Mitt Romney over refusing to release more than two years of tax returns. Obama’s IRS and his SEC could investigate Romney for supposed financial violations. They haven’t. Yet Democrats continue to pretend there’s something nefarious for Romney to hide, even as they make excuses for Obama’s failure to release the Rashid Khalidi tape, his college records, and relevant documents from his early days in Chicago.