By a narrower margin than any mid term “wave” in recent history, the Democratic Party has now regained the House, and along with that, the chairmanship of the House’s most important statutory committee – the Ways and Means Committee. The Constitution says that the budget process must begin in the House, making setting budget priorities one of the single most important special functions of the entire body. In the chorus of America’s electorate in returning control of the House to Democrats, the primary concerns were healthcare (specifically preservation of pre-existing condition protections), rising deficits resulting from corporate tax cuts, and the cost of “the Wall”. Now in his first resounding action as he prepares to take the gavel, Richard Neal, likely the next Ways and Means Chair has stated that among his first actions as chair will be…… to demand Donald Trump’s tax returns?
President Trump was among the first presidents in modern history not to publicly release his returns – even though the president has no more need to do so than any other private citizen. Candidates have done so largely to show transparency. While IRS firewalls exist specifically to make certain that elected officials may not influence IRS actions against themselves, and while elected officials have statutory audits that mandate laser focus on the propriety of their taxes, the decision to release them is their own. However, most candidates have decided that even if there were awkward issues in their returns, that to face the American electorate without releasing their own returns was too risky to contemplate.
President Trump has continually resisted such a release, citing such issues as audits most of which seem like changing the subject because he just doesn’t want to, and he chose to face the voters (as was his right) without the release. Most Americans on both sides assume that the release of his returns is likely to show that despite his wealth, Donald Trump pays very little in taxes. While many Democrats have tried to associate this with not paying his “fair share”, and while there may be a strong argument to that case, Trump is also unique to history in not having been a part of any branch of government before his presidential election – meaning that even if he’s paid nothing in taxes, that the laws that governed Trump’s tax payments were passed without any of the President’s doing. More to the point, those tax systems were hashed out in the House Ways and Means Committee which now seeks to order the President to turn them over – and not because of any specific issue… But because every other President has done so and he has not.
The Democrats have been given a limited mandate of power to show they can deliver on the issues the current administration has put on the back burner. If they can use the House to set budget objectives, preserve benefits to Americans and return to an environment of civility in the public sphere, perhaps they’ll be rewarded. This is my country. Regardless of my own “side”, I wish the House leadership success, and hope they listen to those who have given them this opportunity. I strongly implore them not to focus first on political posturing. If their early priorities really are seeking the president’s taxes, impeachments sent to a Senate unlikely to convict, and lines in the sand that create a government shutdown, this foothold given by one of the most precarious margins in recent history may instead ensure this president a second term and deliver all three branches of government back to the Republicans in another two years.
2 claps
Loading…