Sorry, Katrina, that Romney response seems weak tea to me. For a start, what’s with all the “Harry this” and “Harry that” stuff? Why maintain a pretense of cozy clubbability when some slug’s defaming you? He should call him “Reid”, and with a curled lip. Mitt is Mister Cautious, and I can understand that to a degree when you’re dealing with Obama and everything you say risks shrieks of “Racist!”, but if you can’t be rude about a seedy, unloved, timeserving hack like Reid, who can you be rude about?
Has Harry Reid paid any tax in the last 40 years? Who knows? He’s never released his tax returns, so we have no idea by what fortuitous process a lifelong “public servant” becomes a multi-millionaire. How does that happen?
Harry Reid has earned his net worth through his lucrative career in politics, and as a city attorney in his early years.
Oh. A career on the Nevada Gaming Commission and U.S. Senate Ethics Committee is not yet as happily “lucrative” as one in, say, Palestinian public service, but it’s getting there. Joe Biden has been in public service all his life, save a brief period in a small undistinguished law practice. His wife is a high school teacher who also worked in a psychiatric hospital. This is where they live.
Vice President Biden has been drawing government paychecks since 1970. He has some private income – for example, he rents a cottage on his estate to the Secret Service, who have to live there to protect him. So we pay his rental income, too.
Mitt Romney lives somewhat less lavishly than one would expect a man with his curriculum vitae to live. The opposite is true of many members of America’s lifelong legislative class. If ever there were a time when a bit of righteous anger and fire in the belly wouldn’t go amiss from Mitt, this is it.