Dear Ann Romney: Re: Legally Required

Mrs Romney,

I would like to tell you that no one expects to catch your family breaking any laws. I, for one, am pretty sure that if your husband has ever worked hard at anything, it was to make sure that your fortune is free of any legal entanglements. That is not what the American people care about.

The problem is that what is legal is not always what is right or what is fair. I am certain that all of the off-shore accounts and shell corporations, the blind trusts and the retroactive retirements are legal, by the book. It doesn’t stop me from finding them creepy or unfair to the rest of the nation.

We want to see a man run for office who is willing to own up, not just to what is legal, but to what is right. We want a person who will lead, not in an effort to minimize the greatness of what America can achieve when we work together, but in an effort to promote the General Welfare (a phrase that I hope you are familiar with).

Taxes are a duty and a responsibility. They pay for national parks, infrastructure, defense, and, yes, social safety nets that keep our working class seniors from living on cat food. Just like military service looks good and public office looks good, paying taxes looks good. Just like jury duty and voting are responsibilities, paying taxes is a responsibility. Of course there are ways to get out each of  them legally, but we don’t want someone who does only what is legal. We want someone who invests in America with their time, their money, and their whole heart.

No one expects to catch you doing anything illegal. What we expect to see in a candidate is someone who has not gone to great effort to avoid investing in the government he hopes to lead. What I honestly expect to see here is someone who has made every effort to limit his responsibility to our nation. We know he’s done everything legally; we want to see just how hard he has worked to abuse the laws and loopholes to limit his “tax burden”.

This isn’t about what is merely legal. This is about what is the right direction for the country. We want a man who has done what he can to make it better for as many Americans as possible. What we are seeing is someone whose primary concern has always been hisself, or at most his family. That’s acceptable in a private citizen. The President of the United States has to have bigger, broader priorities.