Trump's taxes: White House still stonewalling
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
The plutocrat in the White House swears the Republican Robin-Hood-in-Reverse tax bill he egged on and gleefully signed will cost him a ton of money.
"Trump could prove today that he’s telling the truth by releasing his tax returns," challenged Noah Lanard of Mother Jones magazine, "He just chooses not to."
Most reporters are choosing not to ask the president or his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, about the returns. Why they don't baffles this old reporter-turned-history-teacher.
Trump's taxes are a big issue, especially in light of the tax bill. "Everything we know about his finances suggests he will actually save tens of millions of dollars in the years to come," Lanard also wrote.
Trump and Sanders are sticking to the same script that was written back on the campaign trail: Sorry, he can't publicize the returns because he's being audited.
Reporters have pointed out that even if the IRS was poring over the returns, Trump could release them. Trump and Sanders are sticking to the stonewalling and mum's the word from most reporters about the president's undisclosed tax returns.
Even so, "the tax return issue hasn't been completely forgotten," said veteran Kentucky journalist Bill Straub, who writes a political column for KentuckyForward.com and NKYTribune.com.
Straub is a former Washington correspondent for the Kentucky Post and Cincinnati Post and a White House and political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He cited MJ's David Corn. He "notes daily via twitter 'Today would be a good day for President Trump to release his tax returns,'" said Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.
Straub conceded that a reporter could grow gray and long-in-the-tooth waiting on the White House to release the president's returns. "Which," he said, "is one reason the issue is only rarely raised. Regardless of pressure, Trump has made it clear he will not release any of his tax returns."
Straub said knocking out a news piece about Trump's refusal to release his returns "is like writing a story saying the sun is going to rise in the east this morning. The fact by itself is going to add nothing to the debate."
Straub said that rather than flat-out querying Trump or Sanders about the returns, some reporters have adopted an indirect approach.
"For instance there have been a number of stories printed over the past months about the number of lies this president tells. As we used to say in Kentucky, he'd rather climb up a tree and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth. When the lying issue is raised, reports regarding his tax returns leach into the narrative."
Straub said the tax legislation itself has resurrected the tax returns as a news story.
"The Republicans have inserted a provision into their godawful tax cut bill to benefit real estate developers by allowing them to take advantage of a new tax break that’s planned for partnerships, limited liability companies and other so-called 'pass-through' businesses. It could earn Trump millions and editorialists are citing it as an example of why the president should release his tax returns."
Still, Straub argued that the main reason the president's taxes "is no longer an A-list issue is Trump's propensity for flooding the zone. He is involved in so many incredible, outrageous things that an old story, like tax returns, gets buried by the new.
"When you're writing about tax cuts, Russian intervention in the election, speculation that he will fire Mueller, the nomination of incredibly unqualified judges, essentially calling Sen. Kristen Gillibrand a whore, moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, indicating that he considers the FBI corrupt, well, tax returns seem so 2016. It's a credible issue, of course, but it's buried by a tsunami of outrage."