Dear Beltway Media: Speech Transcripts Have Nothing To Do With Releasing Tax Returns

In a primary contest like the one Bernie and Hillary have been waging, it was fair game to ask for Hillary's speech transcripts to be released since his campaign has made Wall Street and campaign financing big issues.

However, Hillary has no obligation to do so since it has never part of the lexicon of requirements to which a presidential candidate must submit. Her stance has hurt her with some Democratic voters and that's her choice to make.

Yet, when it comes to tax returns, it has been firmly established that presidential nominees of each party must release their tax returns to the general public. We have over forty years of precedent on this matter. Every candidate has done so since 1976, after Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew proved them necessary.

If a candidate refuses to release them, then there must be something very damaging to their candidacy. Mitt Romney got heat for only paying 15% on his taxes, but that didn't sink his chances. His 47%er remarks were much more damaging to him.

The fact that Donald Trump is refusing to release his returns based on the lie that he's facing an IRS audit should raise red flags to all media outlets and they should not let Trump weasel his way out of releasing them.

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