Trump and Tax Day

As Tax Day rolled around this week, did you think of President Donald Trump and how he hasn’t lived up to his oft-made promise to release past tax returns? As you were writing your check and filing your forms, did you remember that he once bragged that he’d avoided paying taxes altogether?

He’s still refusing to release his returns. On Monday, a day before the deadline for most Americans to pay their 2016 taxes, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the president’s tax statements were being audited and would not be released. Trump himself has made the same excuse for not releasing previous returns, but he has offered no proof of an audit.

Actually, presidential tax returns are routinely audited, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be released. Previous presidents going back decades have made their tax forms publicly available. The president is lying, but no news there. We can only wonder: What is he hiding? His extensive business relations with Russian oligarchs, perhaps? Embarrassing revelations about his many bankruptcies?

If the president wants to know why he’s tanking in the polls, he can start here. Americans are waking up to his shady dealings and misuse of office. They see a man who has created a family-run business in the White House and is using the prestige of the office to enhance his family’s financial worth.

We were warned. I remember a 60 Minutes interview with Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter who shadowed Trump for weeks in order to author The Art of the Deal for him. Schwartz described Trump as a narcissist and pathological liar who believes that whatever he says is true simply because he said it. And now he’s our president.