By Jeffrey Page

A late note on Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader of the Senate, who is an idiot. Of this there can be no doubt. It was Reid, after all, the supposedly distinguished gentleman from Nevada, who said Barack Obama has “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” That was not in the Stone Age of American politics, but just two years ago. He also chided Obama for his different vocal inflections when speaking before the NAACP and less formal gatherings.

“Negro dialect?” In 2010? (Reid also noted for anyone who cared to listen, that Obama was a “light-skinned” black person.

And now, along comes Harry Reid jumping into the fray over whether Mitt Romney has paid any income tax for the last decade or so. He has not, Reid said. He asserted this on the floor of the Senate, where members can’t be sued for what they say. Someone who worked at Romney’s Bain Capital slipped Reid this juicy bit of information, he said. But alas, it was a confidential tip so Harry was unable to reveal the source’s identity.

And there it hangs: The belief that Romney paid no taxes. Clearly, Reid accomplished what he set out to do.

Meanwhile, some of Romney’s defenders don’t sound very helpful when they go into attack mode against Reid.

First up was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, who called Reid “a dirty liar” on national TV.

There are problems with Priebus’s logic. If Romney’s tax affairs are Romney’s business and no one else’s, as he and his allies insist, how could Priebus conclude that Reid was lying? He never backed up his “dirty liar” assertion by saying Romney showed him his 1040s. I think Priebus knows as much about Romney’s taxes as I do. Which is nothing at all.

Then there was Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. discussing Reid on television: “I think he’s lying about his statement of knowing something about Romney. I think he has created an issue here. I think he’s making things up.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Romney and his relationship with the Internal Revenue Service. Graham thinks Reid is lying, thinks Reid has created an issue, thinks Reid is making things up. If you’re waiting for Graham to say something for certain, let me know when it comes. In the meantime, his use of think needs a little work. Because if I say I think he’s a dolt it means I can’t be sure.

Interesting part of this contretemps is that, unless I’m seriously mistaken, that was about the extent of the defense of Mitt and his tax habits. The Messrs. Paul, Gingrich, Perry, Cain, Huntsman, Pawlenty, Santorum, and Ms. Bachmann, all of whom had plenty to say (mostly negative) about Romney before he crushed them, have been uncharacteristically silent in their presumed outrage over Reid’s charge against their presumed nominee.

Finally there was Romney himself. In a campaign stop in Nevada, he declared: “Let me also say categorically: I have paid taxes every year. A lot of taxes. A lot of taxes.”

So have I, so have I, Mitt. So has everybody else in this country. We pay sales tax, county tax, village tax, school tax, gasoline tax, and, oh yes, federal and state income taxes.

Here are the questions that apparently will not be answered and thus will not go away. Which taxes do you pay, Mitt? A lot, you say? What’s a lot, Mitt? How much in flat dollars? And how much as a percentage of your adjusted gross income?

Obama’s man David Axelrod put it plainly: Mitt Romney ought to take 10 seconds and release his tax returns. “Why don’t they just put it to rest?” Axlerod said. “What is it that he is hiding?”

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

Sen. Harry Reid: Show us the tax returns.

By Bob Gaydos

I don’t know if Harry Reid is a liar or a political genius. It’s possible he’s both, or neither. Or one or the other.

Whatever the truth, and that’s an elusive commodity in this election campaign, the Senate Majority Leader has managed to do what the Obama reelection team has heretofore not — delivered a verbal broadside to Mitt Romney’s election campaign which actually has the potential to increase in damage the longer it hangs around.

Reid has said publicly, repeatedly, and even on the floor of the U.S. Senate that Romney paid no income taxes for 10 years. Reid says a credible source who would know such things told him. Romney says the charge is false. Other Republicans have called Reid a liar. Reid, and other Democrats, have replied simply, “Show us the tax returns.”

Genius. If I’m lying, you can show the world right now. Harry Reid is a dirty, rotten liar. If I’ve sullied your reputation by implying you evaded taxes even though you’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars (at least), hell, sue me. I repeat: Mitt Romney paid no taxes for 10 years.

The whole tax thing becomes particularly difficult for Romney, of course, because his dad, George Romney, established the precedence for presidential candidates releasing tax returns for several years when he ran for president in 1968. In releasing 12 years of tax returns, the Michigan governor said it was the best way to let Americans know of any potential conflicts of interest their would-be presidents might have as well as providing some insight into their character. Guess he was right.

Thus far, Mitt Romney has released a tax return for one year — 2010 — and an estimate for 2011. He says that’s all he will release. Even that little bit of information has raised red flags about how he feels about paying taxes, investing in America and creating jobs. There’s stuff, for example, about a bank account in Switzerland. This account was apparently closed in 2010, but there’s no way to know if Romney paid taxes on the account in previous years and, if so, how much. And why mess around with Swiss francs anyway if you’re such a proud American?

Another item of curiosity in Romney’s tax return is a $100 million IRA. Now, Americans are by and large OK with people accumulating wealth legitimately, but it is hard to imagine contributing enough within even generous legal yearly limitations to build up a $100 million IRA. How did he do that?

These questions were raised by people with a far better understanding of the tax code than I. They were posed in a Time magazine article by Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. and former chief of staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, and. Peter C. Canellos, a lawyer and former chair of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section.

The two also wonder about the Romneys’ 2010 federal tax rate of 13.9 percent on adjusted gross income of $22 million. That’s lower than the rate for the average American taxpayer earning abut $50,000 a year. Romney apparently used a tax loophole that allowed him, as someone who manages other people’s money, to claim an absurdly low tax rate.

With this attitude towards taxes and no previous returns to help make judgments, how are Americans supposed to know how a President Romney will address the tax code and the general inequity in wealth in America? How are they supposed to take an accurate measure of the man if he won’t reveal how he made his wealth, where it’s invested and why so much of it is in accounts in other countries?

Back to Reid. Some fact-checking web sites have jumped on him for not corroborating his claim with, you know, evidence. Fair enough. I’m very much in favor of corroboration. But the fact-checking web sites have gone so far as to say or suggest that Reid is lying because he has offered no proof. That is a reach too far. No one knows whether Reid is lying, save for Reid and Romney. Reid may be playing dirty politics. Then again, he may not. In either case, Republicans, who have made provably untrue claims about President Obama in their TV ads, have no credibility when it comes to accusing Democrats of making false accusations. Pot, meet kettle.

So what do Republicans do? They can keep calling Reid a liar and he can keep saying, “Just show us the tax returns to prove it.”

Or they can ignore the charge and let the questions linger: Why won’t Romney release his tax returns? Does he have something to hide?

Neither is good for Romney.

I’m no fan of Harry Reid or the politics of rumor, but when Republicans and their mouthpieces at Fox News — acolytes all of Karl Rove — start calling Reid a “hit man” for Obama and the Democrats, I have to confess thinking, what took them so long?

 bob@zestoforange.com