Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Mitt Romney Won't Release 12 Years Of Tax Returns, Wants President Obama To "Start Packing"
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 16, 2012
Modified Apr 16, 2012
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
ABC News
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 16, 2012
Modified Apr 16, 2012
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Now that Rick Santorum is out of the race and concentrating on making his ailing three-year-old daughter a lifetime NRA member, likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is very confident in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer. He says that President Obama should "start packing." Ann Romney, cause celebre/"daughter of privilege", added, "I believe it’s… Mitt’s time… It’s our turn now."
Romney claims that Obama's "policies have not helped the American people. They have not helped get jobs, they have not helped raise incomes and they’ve added trillions of dollars of debt" and insists that he can relate to working class people, in spite of being extremely wealthy, so much so that one of his homes in LaJolla, California will have an elevator for his cars in the garage. Romney said, "We don’t divide America based upon success and wealth and other dimensions of that nature. We’re one nation under God …. This is a time when people of different backgrounds and different experiences need to come together." But our tax policies divide people.
As for Obama's suggestion that Romney release 12 years of tax returns, Romney said no way, "The president is going to try and do everything possible to divert from the attention being focused upon his record as president and the failure of his economic policies. So he’s going to try to make this campaign about the fact that I’ve been successful, that I’ve made a lot of money." Well, Romney did release 23 years worth of returns to John McCain in 2008 when McCain's campaign was vetting him as a VP possibility—when will those surface?
Diane Sawyer interviews the Romneys (ABC News)
Sawyer also asked Ann Romney about her comments that Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen's remarks were a "birthday gift." (Rosen said that Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life" which is technically true, but Ann Romney took to Twitter to say, "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys"). The candidate's wife told Sawyer, "That wasn’t how I meant it. It was a birthday gift to me because I love the fact that we’re talking about this."
Hmm, well, Rosen's full remarks were, "Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we -- why do we worry about their future?" And Ann Romney herself said in 1994 that she and her husband were living off the sale of some stock (funded by his father), "No, I did not work. Mitt thought it was important for me to stay home with the children, and I was delighted."
Tagged
ann romney
election 2012
mitt romney
president obama
taxes
wealthy
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Oct 16, 2026 at 4:22 p.m. ET
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
News
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
Inside the plan to fix the nearly collapsed Pfizer Building, 1/64th of an inch at a time
By
David Brand
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
By
Jessica Gould
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
By
Clayton Guse
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .