Dems slam Romney over offshore finances, call for more tax returns

By Bernie Becker - 07/08/12 01:19 PM ET

Top Democrats repeatedly slammed Mitt Romney on Sunday for his foreign wheelings and dealings, as President Obama’s campaign continues to make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee doesn’t understand the concerns of the middle class.

Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Robert Gibbs, an Obama campaign adviser, were among the Democrats to fan out across the Sunday talk shows to say that Romney’s dealings in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda raised questions not only about his personal finances, but how he would take charge of the economy.

"He is the first and only candidate for President of the United States with a Swiss bank account, with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries," Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

"When it comes down to his Swiss bank account, there is just no way to explain it," Durbin added. "You either get a Swiss bank account to conceal what you are doing or you believe the Swiss franc is stronger than the American dollar."

The Democrats also said that, because of the array of financial transactions, Romney should release more of his tax records.

Gibbs, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said that step could clear up a lot of confusion about the former Massachusetts governor, who has released a 2010 tax return and estimated records for 2011.

“Mitt Romney's father was the pioneer for releasing a series of tax returns and the best way to figure out if he is complying with American tax law is to have him release more of the tax returns,” the former White House press secretary said. “This is a guy whose slogan is ‘Believe in America’, and it should be ‘Business in Bermuda’ and that is what he is all about.”

The back-and-forth over Romney’s foreign holdings escalated over the last week, after an article in Vanity Fair detailed how Romney’s financial advisers formed a new corporation in Bermuda, among other financial transactions.

Obama’s campaign has for months pushed the argument that Romney’s experience in private equity and his offshore account showed the former Massachusetts governor was out of touch.

Democrats have said that they believe the issue is a political winner, and an Obama campaign spokesman said last week that the most recent financial details illustrated how Romney “bets against America.”

The Obama campaign also released a new video on Romney's offshore holdings on Sunday, another sign that the president will make a strong push to score political points on the issue.

For their part, the Romney campaign released a statement this weekend asserting that the presumptive nominee has not lowered his tax bill through his foreign accounts, and that he had not taken advantage of tax havens.

But Republicans like former Gov. Haley Barbour (Miss.) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.) also deflected questions about Romney’s finacial dealings on the Sunday shows – just days after some conservative opinion leaders expressed concern that Romney’s campaign was not responding aggressively enough to Obama.

Barbour, appearing with Durbin on “Face the Nation,” said that Obama and his allies were simply trying to make Romney look like a bad person.

“The fact of the matter is this is a guy who has a spectacular career and record, enormously generous, has given away millions and millions of dollars that he made, not of the government's money, but of money he made,” the former chairman of the Republican National Committee said.

Jindal and the current RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, said Sunday that independent fact-checkers had panned the Obama campaign’s claims that Romney’s Bain Capital had outsourced jobs, and said Democrats were trying to distract from the president’s shoddy jobs record.

The Labor Department said Friday that the economy added just 80,000 jobs in June, with job growth slowing during the middle months for a third consecutive year.

“All of this nastiness and division about investments and money and rich versus poor, this is going to come down to how people feel in November, how do people feel about this president?” Priebus asked on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I think voters will consider all of the distractions thrown out by the Obama campaign,” Jindal said on ABC’s “This Week.”

But appearing on that same show, Gov. Martin O’Malley (Md.) repeatedly brought up Romney’s Swiss bank accounts, and said they brought up legitimate questions for someone who wants to sit in the Oval Office.

“He doesn't have an economic policy,” O’Malley said about Romney. “And his track record in business was to offshore American jobs and to set up secret bank accounts offshore to shelter his own fair share of paying taxes to make our country stronger.”

And Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said that voters had the right to see more of Romney’s tax returns.

George Romney, who ran for president in 1968, released a dozen years of tax returns, as Democrats are quick to note, and Obama has unveiled records dating back to 2000.

Mitt Romney’s 2010 tax returns also showed that he paid just under a 14 percent rate, on more than $20 million in income.

“Americans need to ask themselves why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?” Wasserman Schultz asked.