The Obama campaign continued its attacks on Mitt Romney's taxes with the Tuesday release of a new Web video targeting the GOP presidential hopeful with allegedly using tax shelters and loopholes.
The ad pits Romney's alleged use of tax shortcuts against his running mate Paul Ryan's comments about eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy.
"What we're saying is take away the tax shelters that are uniquely enjoyed by people in the top tax brackets so they can't shelter as much money from taxation," Ryan says in the video.
The ad cites a
Washington Post article that accuses Romney of leaving Bain Capital with "rare tax benefits in retirement" and goes on to call for the former Massachusetts governor to release more than two years worth of tax returns.
"By refusing to release multiple years of tax returns, [Mitt Romney's] flouting decades of precedent set in motion by his father during his own presidential run in 1968," Obama For America spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.
"Until Romney releases more years of returns, the American people won’t know his motivations on critical policy issues like tax reform or whether he was investing in offshore accounts and foreign tax havens to avoid paying his fair share of U.S. taxes."
But as Democrats push the issue to the forefront of their reelection campaign going into this week's Democratic National Convention, the Romney camp looked to turn attention away from their candidate's finances and back onto to nation's weakened economy.
"Just days after the Obama campaign conceded that Americans are not better off than they were four years ago, it is not surprising that they would again attempt to distract voters from President Obama’s failed economic record," Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg responded.
"At this week’s convention, the Obama campaign won’t be able to talk about President Obama’s record of chronic unemployment, falling incomes, and skyrocketing gas prices," she said.
Vice presidential nominee Ryan continued to tour battleground states Tuesday, gnawing on the president's fiscal record at an Ohio rally.
"They fired Carter and hired Reagan, and were going to do the same thing," Ryan said. "You really can't look at the data, the suffering family, or the jobs losses ... and honestly say we're better off than we were four years ago."
