I just watched a segment on the Bloomberg Politics website of a program called “With All Due Respect” which was recorded today, Monday, 4/11/16.  The host Mark Halprin and Campbell Brown interviewed Jane Sanders, wife of Senator Bernie Sanders.  Among other subjects discussed was budding controversy involving the fact that thus far Bernie Sanders has only released their tax returns for 2014.  None of their prior year returns have been released while Hillary Clinton has released her returns for the last eight years.

In the course of answering a number of questions and follow up questions Jane Sanders essentially said that she files the taxes through TurboTax. She also said it has been her fault the forms have not been released, that she just hasn’t had time to find the old returns and put them out to the press. She also said that Bernie had released tax returns in the past.

The fact is that the Sanders have only released the Form 1040 (the summery pages, not all of the documents) of their 2014 federal returns and their one page 2014 State of Vermont return.  The claims of both Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane that they have in the past released prior year returns in conjunction with his Senate campaigns have earned “Four Pinocchios” from several fact checking organizations.

Come on let’s get real.  Bernie Sanders said that his prior year’s returns are dull and boring and that there’s nothing to them.  Donald Trump says there’s nothing to be found in the tax returns he “hasn’t gotten around to releasing” as well.  Why should we believe either of these politicians?

Look Bernie and Jane, if your prior years returns are dull and boring just put them out there.  It would take me less than 10 minutes to go down in my basement and pull out at least 7 years of returns out of an old file metal file cabinet.  I am pretty sure that most Americans reading this could do the same.

If you don’t have time to go home or you can’t find those old tax folders, just go on line and for a small fee the IRS will send you copies for as many years as you need.  Better yet Jane, if you really did use Turbo Tax to fill out your tax forms, you an go on line on their web site and access your old returns for free. Every day that you delay turning them over just adds to the suspicion that there is something in them that you want to hide.

All of that said, I think there one of two things going on behind the scenes of the Sanders campaign.  One explanation is that while it takes virtually no time to obtain and publish old tax returns, but it might take quite a while to comb though those returns to insure that aren’t any unpleasant surprises contained there in.  Maybe that’s what the campaign staffers are doing right now.

The other explanation might be that the returns might reveal something that Sanders doesn’t want released right now in the middle of the nomination fight. Nothing illegal, but for instance maybe the old socialist doesn’t want it revealed that over the years he has been a cheapskate when it came to donating to charities.

Regardless, it does matter what the real reason is.  No one is buying Jane Sanders’ weak excuses.  It won’t take very long for the very fact that Sanders has not released his tax returns to going to become a major issue in and of itself.

Cajun   4/12/2016