Trump Tax Returns - Does it Really Matter to You?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

First, IRS returns, IF they can be used as evidence for financial wrong doing, are the purview of the IRS. If they didn't see anything wrong with them (and unless this current audit comes up with something, they haven't) then WE have no reason to look at them.

I guess you missed my post a few pages back that dealt with this: even if Trump had done nothing wrong at all - which seems unlikely, but if - there would still be reason for his tax returns to be publicized.

He's a public official; he has an ethical obligation to avoid conflicts of interest. However, the president doesn't report to any regulator who confirms that he has no conflicts. The only mechanisms to hold a president accountable on this are:

- Congress's power to impeach, and
- the people's power to vote him out.

But neither Congress nor the people can determine whether a conflict of interest exists without knowing what Trump's interests are.

You like to harp on hypocrisy; remember that Carter was pressured into selling the farm that had been in his family for generations to ensure he had no conflict of interest. Just seeing what assets Trump owns and where he gets his incone from would still be nowhere near the standard that Democratic presidents have been made to meet.

 

[dianaiad]

We're never going to agree since I do believe the "rule of law" is very important. You and the Donald obviously don't.

If one defies the law, which can be a moral action at times, then one must be willing to possibly pay the consequences, such as what Gandhi did and paid dearly for. But to defy a law for the sake of convenience or to evade the Constitutional mandate that Congress has to oversee the Executive Branch is both immoral and also it can lead to autocracy. Is that really what you want? Is a president to be above the law?

If you want a lawless country, then what you are proposing is the way to go-- I don't. Therefore, there's simply nothing more to discuss since our entire approach to the "rule of law", including the Constitution itself, is very different.

Well, remember that camo cloth...and take a really good set of tools with you.

Slavery WAS the law.
Segregation WAS the law.

The Constitution is the law...and I have noticed that the left, which views the constitution as a 'living document' which may be reinterpreted and tweaked at political need, views 'the rule of law' very conveniently indeed.

 

[dianaiad]

I guess you missed my post a few pages back that dealt with this: even if Trump had done nothing wrong at all - which seems unlikely, but if - there would still be reason for his tax returns to be publicized.

He's a public official; he has an ethical obligation to avoid conflicts of interest. However, the president doesn't report to any regulator who confirms that he has no conflicts. The only mechanisms to hold a president accountable on this are:

- Congress's power to impeach, and
- the people's power to vote him out.

But neither Congress nor the people can determine whether a conflict of interest exists without knowing what Trump's interests are.

You like to harp on hypocrisy; remember that Carter was pressured into selling the farm that had been in his family for generations to ensure he had no conflict of interest. Just seeing what assets Trump owns and where he gets his incone from would still be nowhere near the standard that Democratic presidents have been made to meet.

Carter did not have to sell his farm. He could have done what EVERY other president with private income has done...and that includes Trump...put it in a trust so that he no longer has any day to day interest or control over those businesses. There is nothing wrong in his gettting income from that trust, as long as he doesn't run the businesses in it.


EVERY president with any substantial private business has done this. It's the way it's done, and it's how Trump did it, and he has lost a considerable amount of money because he did.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Not really. I'd rather see the public have full disclosure to a full background check, similar to what many people have to go through for employment. It will tell us far more than what a tax return ever could.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The Constitution is the law...and I have noticed that the left, which views the constitution as a 'living document' which may be reinterpreted and tweaked at political need, views 'the rule of law' very conveniently indeed.

Thomas Jefferson implied it is living and wrote that each generation should update the Constitution so that each generation may address the issues important to their time and so that the living will not be governed by the dead.

 

[Revoltingest]

Thomas Jefferson implied it is living and wrote that each generation should update the Constitution so that each generation may address the issues important to their time and so that the living will not be governed by the dead.

Of course, the Constitution should be updated as specified within.
But it shouldn't be changed by USSC or legislative fiat.
They've eroded jury trial rights & property rights this way.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Of course, the Constitution should be updated as specified within.
But it shouldn't be changed by USSC or legislative fiat.
They've eroded jury trial rights & property rights this way.

Of course there are risks involved. But rarely are there worthy gains without risks. And are rights eroded because we chose it to happen, or because we constantly and consistently fail in our civic duties?

 

[Revoltingest]

Of course there are risks involved. But rarely are there worthy gains without risks. And are rights eroded because we chose it to happen, or because we constantly and consistently fail in our civic duties?

I agree that there are risks.
But I oppose amending the Constitution illegally, the resulting law receiving the USSC's blessing.
I'd rather that we not allow that to happen.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I agree that there are risks.
But I oppose amending the Constitution illegally, the resulting law receiving the USSC's blessing.
I'd rather that we not allow that to happen.

Ultimately, the Declaration was a signed document of treason and the Constitution written to illegally supersede British authority.

 

[Revoltingest]

Ultimately, the Declaration was a signed document of treason and the Constitution written to illegally supersede British authority.

Of course that doesn't justify allowing the 3 branches of government to do as they
please, ignoring the Constitution. The goal of revolution was a new government,
with new laws. That having been achieved, we should observe the highest law in
the land, ie, the Constitution.
To anyone who believes leaders should just do what's right, & ignore the Constitution,
bear in mind that this is Donald Trump you're giving this power to. Do you really trust
him with power unrestrained by the Constitution?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

To anyone who believes leaders should just do what's right

I'm not sure if anyone does believe that. But it also can't be ignored that is what happened for America to become sovereign.

Do you really trust
him with power unrestrained by the Constitution?

I trust him to take "administrative time" and go cry in a corner if someone dropped even more responsibilities off on him.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm not sure if anyone does believe that. But it also can't be ignored that is what happened for America to become sovereign.

Some posters here have suggested doing exactly that.

I trust him to take "administrative time" and go cry in a corner if someone dropped even more responsibilities off on him.

I bet he'd be thrilled to have more power.
And I'll further bet that all these posters who think he's a nascent Hitler would agree.
(That might be the only thing anti-Trumpettes would agree with me about.)

 

[dianaiad]

Thomas Jefferson implied it is living and wrote that each generation should update the Constitution so that each generation may address the issues important to their time and so that the living will not be governed by the dead.

DID he, now?

Care to supply that precise quote?

BTW, we are deeply indebted to Thomas Jefferson for writing the declaration of Independence.

However, James Madison wrote the Constitution; TJ was in Paris, being an ambassador at the time of the Constitutional Convention. Just as a point of information.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I bet he'd be thrilled to have more power.

He doesn't seem thrilled to have the power he does have. We have an example of his daily schedule which is very unproductive, he spends copious amounts of time watching TV and away from work, and he shuns his briefings which is a huge indication he doesn't want power (those who hunger for power tend be required by necessity to stay informed), and he very much is the "golfer in chief." Really, it seems all he's interested in and capable of doing is putting on a show and presenting a facade of power. And even that's not going too well for him because his own cabinet has people putting a "kick me" sign on his back.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

DID he, now?

Yup.
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison | The Papers of Thomas Jefferson

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of[1] the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof.—I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’:[2] that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.
...
On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who[27] gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19[28] years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.—It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to 19[29] years only.

 

[Willamena]

Much has been made over Trump releasing his tax returns and there has been a lot of noise from the democrats and political opponents and recently a democratic 2020 presidential hopeful vowed he'd release his for the last seven years but who cares? Trump was freely and fairly elected without releasing his tax returns.

A few questions:

-Why is it important to some that Trump release his tax returns

-Do you think the renewed calls are politically motivated since the Mueller report didn't work out the way democrats wanted?

It matters to me in the same way the MacGuffin matters. I eagerly look forward to each week's episode.

 

[Revoltingest]

He doesn't seem thrilled to have the power he does have. We have an example of his daily schedule which is very unproductive, he spends copious amounts of time watching TV and away from work, and he shuns his briefings which is a huge indication he doesn't want power (those who hunger for power tend be required by necessity to stay informed), and he very much is the "golfer in chief." Really, it seems all he's interested in and capable of doing is putting on a show and presenting a facade of power. And even that's not going too well for him because his own cabinet has people putting a "kick me" sign on his back.

Exercising power can leave lots'o spare time, depending upon one's level of diligence.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Exercising power can leave lots'o spare time, depending upon one's level of diligence.

Only after one has invested the time to secure such power. Trump has not done so. He's a president of idle threats and less than a "dolittle" of enforcing military threats. It's greatly to our benefit he really doesn't seem like putting the work into it to get the power he at least fantasizes about.

 

[Revoltingest]

Only after one has invested the time to secure such power. Trump has not done so. He's a president of idle threats and less than a "dolittle" of enforcing military threats. It's greatly to our benefit he really doesn't seem like putting the work into it to get the power he at least fantasizes about.

We'll have to agree to disagree about how power hungry he is.
I still say he'd like more than he has.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We'll have to agree to disagree about how power hungry he is.
I still say he'd like more than he has.

I don't doubt he's power hungry. He just isn't showing indications of actually pursuing it. Such as how he ruffled his peacock feathers with Un, and then pretty much moved on despite a war being a great way to get him a second term.