Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, ran for President
of the United States in 1844. Ever since then a rumor has circulated
among Mormons known as the “White Horse Prophecy": that the day would
come when the U.S. Constitution would “hang by a thread” and a member of
the Mormon priesthood would save the Constitution and the country.
Enter Mitt Romney on the proverbial “White Horse,” maybe the same one
for which he claims a $77,000 tax break.
Mitt Romney: Fulfilment of the 'White Horse Prophecy' of Revelations?For
many Mormons--Glenn Beck, for example--the White Horse Prophecy not
only presages the theopolitical coronation of Mitt, but it adds divine
approval to condemnation of Obama and the evil of liberal politics. In
the last month however, Mitt has splashed a lot more mud on that "White
Horse."
First, let’s add to Mitt’s dishonesty merit badges his complete and
utter silence on the Republican Party’s voter suppression of the young,
the poor, and minorities. Remember Mitt, how you told us how much it
meant to you that you saw your father “march with Martin Luther King in
Detroit.” Another lie. Evidently you didn’t envision them marching to
the voting booth. If Mitt cared one whit about civil rights, he would
stand up to his party’s bald faced machinations to steal the election,
sabotage our democracy and deny the cornerstone of those civil rights he
claims to care so much about.
Next, the new Romney ads on Obama’s medicare and welfare policies are
so breathtakingly deceptive, even some Republicans like Joe Scarborough
have called them outright lies. Nowadays any reference to the Nazis is
dismissed as hyperbolic, especially because it is a perennial favorite
whenever imagination is in short supply at Tea Party rallies. But Joseph
Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, famously said, “It’s not truth
that matters but victory...if you tell a big enough lie and tell it
frequently enough, it will be believed.” Apparently Mitt must really
admire Goebbels style.
More about Mitt’s past has recently resurfaced that completes the
portrait of a man who was willing to wade into virtually any ethical
abyss if there was money to be made or political ambitions to be fed.
As reported by the Boston Globe and the New York Times, in 2002 Mitt
knowingly and deliberately lied on his tax returns and to the public
about filing state income tax in Massachusetts. Learning that Mitt had
claimed his mansion in Deer Valley, Utah as his primary residence, the
Massachusetts Democratic Party filed suit challenging his eligibility to
run for Governor of Massachusetts. He then claimed that he had filed
state income tax in both Utah and Massachusetts. Not true, he had only
filed in Utah (and saved himself $54,000 by doing so). He
filed in Massachusetts after the fact, by secretly, retroactively amending his returns, and excused it by declaring, “I was not thinking of running for office.”
Mitt is closely tied to hotel chain Marriott International. His full
name is Willard Mitt Romney, named after the chain’s founder, J. Willard
Marriott, a friend of Mitt’s father, George Romney and another high
profile, wealthy Mormon. Mitt served on Marriott’s board and was
chairman of their audit committee. In this key role Romney was the board
member most acquainted with tax transactions and to whom the other
board members turned for advice. It was his job on the board to handle
Marriott’s tax strategy, or more accurately, tax dodging strategy, and
in that role Mitt
steered Marriott into the largest tax scam in US history called Son of BOSS, robbing the US Treasury of $70 million.
Like other prepackaged corporate tax shelters of that era, Marriott's
Son of BOSS transaction was a fraud, bearing no relationship to the
cost of doing business, and Romney would have known that. Its sole
purpose was to magically create a gigantic tax loss out of thin air
without any economic investment other than the fee Marriott paid the
scheme’s promoters,
as detailed
by Peter C. Canellos and Edward D. Kleinbard for CNN . They wrote,
“What emerges from this window into corporate tax compliance behavior is
the picture of an executive who was willing to go to the edge, if not
beyond, to bend the rules to seek an unfair advantage, and then hide
behind the advice of so-called experts to deflect criticism when a
scheme backfires.”
The Romney/Marriott/Son of BOSS saga speaks volumes about Mitt’s
ethical standards and attitude toward government tax obligations. While
he claims he never paid taxes at less than 13% of his income, he offers
no shame, no apology, and no recognition of how deeply wretched and
unfair even that would be to the 99% if it were true. Taxes are for the
little people--you and me--not for the rich, talented and pedigreed.
A critical part of the original seed money for Bain Capital came from
foreign investors through corporations registered in Panama, then known
for tax advantages and extraordinary banking secrecy. As
reported
by the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Salt Lake Tribune and
Salon.com., a significant portion of these start up funds were provided
by ruthless, wealthy oligarchs from El Salvador, whose families also
financed death squads during the country’s bloody civil war in the
1980s, killing tens of thousands of people.
By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed
connections
between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the
families that invested with Romney. Mitt is not Sarah Palin, he does
read newspapers. It is simply not believable that Mitt would not have
known about the connection. Furthermore,
he maintained a personal and business relationship with those families well into the 1990s.
These are even more examples of the undeniable pattern of Mitt’s
business career and his self-proclaimed presidential bona fides of
triumph in the “private sector:” enriching himself, his friends and
associates either with money generated by the lowest of ethical
standards, or hoarded by the loosest definition of the word “legal”.
American culture usually sees wealth, no matter how it’s created, as a
virtue in and of itself. Indeed, the ideological roots of the Tea Party
assume not only that greed is good, but that its not to be tempered
with empathy or compassion. All too many religious conservatives,
including Mormons, go one step further and wrap greed and wealth
creation in a sacred shroud. For them Mitt is the anointed one, the
bright, shiny, righteous hood ornament of American capitalism and Mormon
spiritual hegemony. And no one has more thoroughly embraced this mirage
than his wife Ann, who labeled Mitt’s integrity as “golden.” Golden
calf is more like it.
A few days ago Ann Romney was interviewed by NBC where she
characterized Mitt’s presidential bid as an equal partnership between
the two of them. “We have a reason why we’re running...I believe in my
heart that Mitt is going to save America.” This messiah complex would be
hard to swallow no matter who it came from, but coming from the Romneys
it feels more like water boarding.
Mormons do themselves a disservice if they allow Mitt Romney to be
considered the standard bearer of Mormon values. It’s time for more
Mormons in good standing to join Harry Reid, and splash cold water on
this fantasy of Romney gloriously astride his "White Horse" riding into
the White House.
Dr. Brian Moench is President of
Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He can be reached at:
drmoench@yahoo.com
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