New Obama ad: Did Romney pay any taxes in earlier years?
Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET
(CBS News) As Mitt Romney travels to Pittsburgh today, the Obama campaign is aiming to sow new doubt into the minds of Pennsylvania's swing voters as to whether the Republican presidential candidate is paying his fair share in taxes.
In a new ad airing in the battleground state, President Obama's team takes its latest swing at Romney for refusing to release more than two years' worth of his tax returns.
"Romney admits that over the last two years he's paid less than 15 percent in taxes on $43 million in income," a narrator says in the ad. Then, as the years 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 flash on the screen, the narrator continues, "Makes you wonder if some years he paid any taxes at all."
The ad charges Romney with using "every trick in the book," such as tax havens and offshore accounts, to avoid paying taxes and ends by asking, "What is Mitt Romney hiding?"
In response to the ad, the Romney campaign charged that Mr. Obama is the one with transparency issues.
(Watch CBS News' Bill Plante's report on attacks heating up between Obama and Romney.)
"Whether hiding lobbyists in coffee shops, cutting back-room deals on Obamacare, or concealing the records of 'Fast and Furious,' President Obama's pledge to be transparent has turned out to be just another broken promise," Romney campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said in a statement to CBS News.
Romney today is attending a fundraiser in Pittsburgh, as well as a rally in Irwin, a borough just outside of Pittsburgh. He's also taping a series of interviews with local Pittsburgh news outlets. The southwestern region of Pennsylvania could prove to be a critical area in this year's presidential election.
To win Pennsylvania, Obama needs more than just Philly
Romney stands his ground on tax returns
Outrage over tax returns a replay of past campaigns
Mr. Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 620,000 votes in the 2008 election, but his success was based on a strong showing in and around Philadelphia. But as CBSNews.com's Brian Montopoli reports, the president this year is facing a drop in enthusiasm in Philadelphia. If he wants to win the battleground state again, he will have to perform well in areas around Pittsburgh - including places he lost in 2008 like Beaver County.
The region is largely comprised of working class, union-friendly white voters who may be amenable to the Obama campaign's argument that Romney isn't paying his fair share in taxes.
And a look back at presidential campaigns in recent history shows that the issue of releasing tax returns has been a potent one for decades. Multiple candidates have been dogged by the issue, including one eventual president - Ronald Reagan - who, it turns out, avoided paying state taxes one year.
While Romney is in Pennsylvania today, Mr. Obama flies down to Texas for a series of fundraisers from which he's expected to raise a total of at least $4 million. The president in June raised $71 million, compared to Romney's $106 million in the same month, making June the second month in which Romney outraised him.
This story was corrected to note that President Obama is expected to raise a total of at least $4 million today in Texas, not $5.9 million.
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IF you don't know why I call Mitt A CHICKEN HAWK GOOGLE Mitt Romney suporting the Veitnam war and read it for your self , NOTE I use to live in Masswhen Mitt THE CHICKEN HAWK Romney was Governor ........IT WASN"T VERY PLEASENT
As the previous comment stated, if he can just put all this behind him by being open and honest and releasing the same amount of tax records Obama and Biden have released, why not do it?
His argument of "well their not being transparent either", is what you might call "the wrong answer" It smacks of deception and having something to hide. But Mr. Romney they HAVE released 12 years of tax records. "yeah, bu..bu..but what about this other stuff?" Grow up Mitt! You want to claim your financial and business acumen is the Holy Grail, but won't let anyone examine the basis of this claim?
You can't have it both ways Mitt!
Look at the 'Tool' we currently have in the White House. It took him 3-years to release a hand drawn, doctored-up birth certificate.
Why are you liberals so hypocritical? Look at the mid-term election results. The leftists said it would not be bad, and they were slaughtered. They even tried to impeach a Governor in Wisconsin for doing what he told his constituents he would do... and the liberals lost again.
Let's use the old liberal tag-line. Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? Nope!
How about that lovely health bill? ... Obama promised you could keep your doctor, pay less for coverage, and it would never be a tax. Well, guess what? A liar through and through.
Focus on Obama's record - not childish nonsense about Romney. It's all about timing, and Romney didn't become so successful by acting like a reactive liberal political 'lifer'. You guys are Toast, and are showing great desperation.
You guy's are too much. Really.
This election is going to be about which candidate the American voters think is going to protect the middle class.
Having fellow Republican politicians coming to his defense and saying he has released enough information already isn't going to cut it. Only the American people have the right to say when they've received enough information about all this, and so far, they haven't.
I am going to posts these gems in the other stories for all to see.
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Going off to swim in other waters. Bye-bye.
My questions: (1) Did Stephen Pagliuca invent the new definion of "great company"? In any case, his statement is nonsense. For instance, if his definition of "great company" is one which creates jobs, then his statement is just a tautology. On the other hand, if we use the traditional concept of "great company" as one which creates profits for shareholders then as we have seen perhaps Bain fits this definition, but it has not created jobs, it even destroyed jobs.
(2) Where is evidence that "great companies" -based on his definition- have bases in USA?
(3) Where is evidence that "great companies" -based on his definition- create jobs for Americans?
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-27/wall_street/30669538_1_job-creation-private-equity-mitt-romney
On Friday, 07-13-2012, in five interviews, Romney insisted that the had nothing to do with Bain after 1999, even demanding an apology from the Obama campaign for insinuating that Romney may have committed a felony if his statement was not true.