Senator Trolls Trump With Bill Requiring Presidential Nominees To Release Tax Returns
Source: Igor Bobic, Huffington Post
WASHINGTON Though every major party nominee since 1976 has released his tax returns while running for president, the practice has never been required by law. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wants to change that.
The senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles tax issues, introduced a bill on Wednesday that would force presidential candidates to release their most recent tax returns. The Presidential Tax Transparency Act, as the bill is called, would require candidates to make their latest three years of tax returns public no later than 15 days after becoming the nominee. If they do not comply, the treasury secretary would be directed to do so for them ....
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ron-wyden-donald-trump-tax-returns_us_5745af8ee4b055bb1170be9c
One of my great Senators, Ron Wyden. Thank you for this.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)ToxMarz
(2,154 posts)Earth Bound Misfit
(3,553 posts)Musta slept in late that day
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)on the fact that there is no legal requirement.
And they won't make one. Not if they think it would hurt their nominee.
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)and allow our president to appoint a SC justice.
I think the country should go on a national strike until they do.
ffr
(22,644 posts)If only we had some media outlet like Fox Entertainment who would take it upon themselves to coordinate speakers and timing.
Except in our case, what we need from our government is necessary.
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)I mean it wasnt that long ago, in real terms, that we looked like this
greiner3
(5,214 posts)50,000 years old
RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)The requirements for the office of the President and Vice President are explicitly delineated in the Constitution.
There isn't any provision that would permit Congress to add additional qualifications.
Might be a decent idea but it would require a constitutional Amendment.
OnDoutside
(19,905 posts)itsrobert
(14,157 posts)n/t
RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)Most states have substantial legislation on conduct of party primaries and caucuses. That means that political parties are, in part, structured by those states.
If a political party had a candidate selection process that was in part regulated by a state, or the federal government, then additional qualifications beyond claiming membership in the party would probably be proscribed by the Constitution as well.
Probably.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Apparently, Wyden has thought this through a bit further and found a way to mandate and force the transparency without a legal challenge beyond a possible right of privacy argument that is difficult to make when seeking the presidency. After passage, the candidate would be in a poor position, having to sue the government to stop an action mandated by law.
Maybe I've spent too much time in my life in law libraries, or not enough, but this seems to be quite clever and I say kudos to whoever came up with this proposal.
msongs
(67,193 posts)is NOT on the list
riversedge
(69,708 posts)DesertRat
(27,995 posts)May 25, 2016
If youre a nominee to be President, Americans have said ever since Watergate that you dont get to hide your tax returns #ReleaseTheReturns
This holds true for Trump and Sanders.
Skittles
(152,963 posts)what is in the returns does not reflect the image they are projecting
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)The "I can't find them", "I'm too busy" excuses don't hold water.
lastlib
(22,978 posts)(O'course, I could be wrongg........)
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Pastiche423
(15,406 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Sorry Donald, no excuses here.[center]
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)And probably for the best.
What would be next? Legislation mandating the candidates release their birth certificate? Their college grades? Their stock portfolio? Their job performance reviews in the military or private sector? Where would it end?
No. You should just release your tax returns because it's just the right thing to do.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)Only the Constitution can explicate the qualifications for serving as president. They are laid out in Article II:
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
Those are the qualifications. Congress can't just pass a law deeming someone ineligible because he/she didn't release tax documents. (which raises another random question: how many years of returns would have to be made public? And which years? Could the candidate pick and choose which years are released?).
In U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (1995) there was a similar issue with states trying to limit the terms of their U.S. congressional delegations. The Supreme Court said No, that only the Constitution, as spelled out in Article I, can lay out qualifications for serving in Congress. States or the Congress cannot just pass laws limiting terms. You would have to change the Constitution to do that.
I think the Court would find a similar reasoning with regard to such a law about making a presidential candidate release tax returns (or whatever other documents were demanded).
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)that a person reported to the government. There already are stipulations the President must adhere regarding assets, income, who controls them, etc. Lots of precedent.
sweetapogee
(1,168 posts)While this might be helpful in some folks opinion to discredit a certain candidate, the question to ask is why stop at those seeking the office of the president? Why not congress and the senate? Why just tax returns, make it all business relationships, banking records, and so forth. Then add to it spouses and parents and adult children. Then add health records, college transcripts, on and on.
But as bluestateguy has pointed out, the constitution gives the qualifications for the office so all this is just a moot point.
RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)I like Wyden, but this is a bit like a state enacting a 'nullification' bill. There may be too many vague descriptions in the Constitution, but the qualifications for the President and Vice President are very plain. No way to add to them except by way of a constitutional amendment.
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)This is something we should be happy about?
All these assholes need to get back to work:; worst Congress ever!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)pistegypsy
(7 posts)I want to see and read his college papers and transcripts . . . How does a person with the outward vocabulary and persona of a 5th. grader gain a degree any degree ? . . How does Penn/Wharton feel about being represented by this apparent lack of intellect?. . . hell, this barely rises to a sulky teenager's rhetoric, just before they dissolve into angry silence! Or is this orange 'skidmark' we see on TV just an act to join the dots of all our gloriously ill informed idiots (the the original form of the word, you know, the part of English that's Greek) to draw all the festering, self perceived, wounded folk into one large bucket of 'Vote for the Orange King - He'll fix EVERYTHING you think that your shitty life has thrown at you . . . Not realising that he is one of the shit throwers.
There are three options:
1: This apparent ignoramus is either so full of dumb luck that we're going to have a ginger toddler in the White House spitting his dummy whenever a general or a lawyer tells him he can't crap on either the Constitution nor International Law.
2: This demagogue of self-entitlement, fills his staff with acolytes then purges our political system . . . Déjà vu . . . or the Night of the Short Finger . . .
3: This tanned twаt is a true Manchurian Candidate . . . for whom?
(apologies for using English rather than Amerish and assuming that most of you have a smattering of our bastard language's roots)