The Obamas released tax returns for both Barack and Michelle. The Clintons released returns for both Bill and Hillary. But when John McCain released his tax returns in April, we were told that Cindy McCain’s tax documents would remain private.
It’s not too hard to understand why. The McCains are extraordinarily wealthy — one might even be tempted to call them “elites” — and Cindy McCain’s assets are estimated to be about $100 million, including a private jet, which her husband has been borrowing at a reduced rate.
Given the other candidates’ disclosures, and McCain’s own alleged commitment to transparency, will we ever see Cindy McCain’s returns? She was asked on the “Today” show earlier this month, and said, politely, “Never.”
Yesterday, the campaign reversed course.
Senator John McCain’s wife, Cindy, abruptly reversed course on Friday and released a summary of her 2006 income tax return after weeks of vowing not to do so. The form revealed that she took in more than $6 million in taxable income that year. […]
By far the largest part of Mrs. McCain’s income, $4,551,901, was listed under a category that included rental real estate, royalties, partnerships and trusts, almost certainly coming from her stake in Hensley & Company, one of the country’s largest beer distributorships for Anheuser-Busch, founded by Mrs. McCain’s father and her uncle. She also listed $299,418 in salary and $743,476 in capital gains.
She claimed $569,737 in deductions and paid $1,746,445 in taxes, including the $24,162 she paid for household employees.
Hensley & Company, of which Mrs. McCain is the chairwoman, is valued at more than $100 million by published estimates.
I can appreciate the fact that John McCain’s wife’s finances may seem like trivia, but this really does matter in the context of the presidential campaign. What’s more, the way in which the campaign released the information tells us a lot about how a McCain White House would operate.
The irony is, McCain has bragged, on multiple occasions, about his commitment to transparency. He’s vowed to offer the kind of openness that Bush and Cheney have gone to almost comical lengths to avoid.
And yet, when pressed on tax materials, the McCain campaign waited until late on a Friday afternoon — on Memorial Day weekend — to quietly release a summary of McCain’s wife returns. Worse, this occurred the same day reporters were writing up stories on McCain’s hidden medical records.
In fact, the NYT noted that the release “came without warning” late yesterday. McCain wanted to bury the news, and decided to play the media for chumps.
Note to reporters: McCain has learned a lot from Bush, and apparently has picked up Bush’s worst habits. He’d do the same as president.
For that matter, John McCain, for all of his talk about the importance of disclosure, has gone out of his way to ensure that all of his assets are in his wife’s name. And as Kevin recently noted, “There’s only one reason for a politician to make sure that all his assets are in his wife’s name: it’s to make sure that no one knows anything about his assets. It’s not as if McCain is the first pol to try this, after all. Is the press really going to let him get away with this?”
Indeed, let’s also not lose sight of the fact that McCain has always relied on his wife’s wealth, and has always “mixed business and politics.”
I’d just add that the McCains are not only very wealthy, but that they stand to benefit quite a bit more thanks to McCain’s tax plan.
Her returns also show just how much the McCain family stands to gain from the Arizona senator’s pledge to make permanent President Bush’s tax cuts, which he voted against.
“She’s pretty rich,” said Leonard Burman, a former Treasury official at the Urban Institute, who is the director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “She would do well under Senator McCain’s plan.”
As for whether this actually constitutes disclosure, no one should be fooled. Other candidates have been far more forthcoming with their materials, and yesterday’s summary was quite thin.
“It is laughable for the campaign to release so little information and say they are being transparent,” DNC Communications Director Karen Finney said. “This is another indication that John McCain is not serious when he says he wants to run a transparent campaign, and a disturbing sign that a vote for John McCain is a vote for four more years of secrecy.”