Teach
02-09-2017, 10:40 AM
Political parties. The Cabinet. Congressional committees. These are but a few of the several examples of the unwritten constitution.
“The unwritten constitution (I’m quoting from a Google article) are those processes of our government that are considered an essential part of the system yet they are not actually in the Constitution. These are customs and precedents that have been doing for so long that many citizens think these are, in fact, laws yet they are not.”
I believe that we should add another political practice to the unwritten constitution: presidential release of his/her tax returns. It’s certainly been the past practice of all modern-day presidents to release their tax returns for public perusal.
Approximately 500,000 people have signed a petition requesting that POTUS release his returns. This is not something I would like to look at because somehow in doing so it would have me frothing at the mouth like some Pavlovian dog. Nor would I like to scrutinize POTUS’s tax returns because I would somehow find in doing so it would be equivalent to a lewd, lascivious, and salacious novel that “appeals to the prurient interest.” No, a thousand times no. I would want to know if any of the actions taken by POTUS, either in foreign affairs or domestically, somehow have a relationship to his vast holdings.
Yes, POTUS has vast holdings and investments here in America and throughout the world. There shouldn’t be even the hint of the possibility of a “conflict of interest”. Why were certain countries put on a travel-ban list, while others are not (Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the principal countries involved the dastardly and cowardly attack on the Twin Towers of The World Trade Center). Please don’t tell me that POTUS was using President Obama’s original list; political circumstances, i.e. control of Congress, were quite a bit different, then.
Moreover, the entire situation could be easily rectified by putting assets in a “blind trust”.
I realize that there no law that requires POTUS to release his returns, yet precedent and past practice do have standing in courts of law.
Maybe it will take a Constitutional Amendment – such as the XXII – that limited the President of the United States to two terms in office (formerly a part of the “unwritten constitution”). Yet, in the interim, POTUS should make public his returns. The American people, his constituents, need and deserve to know. Their lives and the lives of their sons and daughters depend on it! The information contained in those tax returns is too important to remain a mystery.
“The unwritten constitution (I’m quoting from a Google article) are those processes of our government that are considered an essential part of the system yet they are not actually in the Constitution. These are customs and precedents that have been doing for so long that many citizens think these are, in fact, laws yet they are not.”
I believe that we should add another political practice to the unwritten constitution: presidential release of his/her tax returns. It’s certainly been the past practice of all modern-day presidents to release their tax returns for public perusal.
Approximately 500,000 people have signed a petition requesting that POTUS release his returns. This is not something I would like to look at because somehow in doing so it would have me frothing at the mouth like some Pavlovian dog. Nor would I like to scrutinize POTUS’s tax returns because I would somehow find in doing so it would be equivalent to a lewd, lascivious, and salacious novel that “appeals to the prurient interest.” No, a thousand times no. I would want to know if any of the actions taken by POTUS, either in foreign affairs or domestically, somehow have a relationship to his vast holdings.
Yes, POTUS has vast holdings and investments here in America and throughout the world. There shouldn’t be even the hint of the possibility of a “conflict of interest”. Why were certain countries put on a travel-ban list, while others are not (Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the principal countries involved the dastardly and cowardly attack on the Twin Towers of The World Trade Center). Please don’t tell me that POTUS was using President Obama’s original list; political circumstances, i.e. control of Congress, were quite a bit different, then.
Moreover, the entire situation could be easily rectified by putting assets in a “blind trust”.
I realize that there no law that requires POTUS to release his returns, yet precedent and past practice do have standing in courts of law.
Maybe it will take a Constitutional Amendment – such as the XXII – that limited the President of the United States to two terms in office (formerly a part of the “unwritten constitution”). Yet, in the interim, POTUS should make public his returns. The American people, his constituents, need and deserve to know. Their lives and the lives of their sons and daughters depend on it! The information contained in those tax returns is too important to remain a mystery.