Romney gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain in 2008, when he was being considered as a running mate. Why all the secrecy now?

Actually it was more the democrats penchant for 'doing good' that tied the anchor to the economy and the republicans that went along with them. Social engineering via housing and the rest of the economy was idiocy. Couple that with the stupid belief that all had learned their lessons about investments and lending during the depression, and nullifying the Glass Stegall Act in 1999 (republicans and democrats, signed by Clinton), both took us down the path to recession. Few people learn a damn thing from the past and with money on the table, it was inevitable that we would not only over extend but would take a dive. It is comfortable to blame one political group, or bankers, or lenders, or investors but it is not that simple - we did it, we wanted the homes we could not afford, we wanted to use charge cards out the wazoo, we wanted 30K cars and we did not care until we had only limited leverage left and, like that kids game where music plays and kids sit in fewer and fewer chairs, we did not care until we didn't get a chair. Everyone was doing the Snoopy dance as the market rose to about 14K and, when it took its inevitable slide, we chose to blame anyone and everyone other than ourselves.

We have a recession roughly every 10 years and pull out relatively quickly. This is the slowest recovery since WWII and that actually is due to the policies of this administration that is truly the Gang who cannot shoot straight. The stimulus might have done it if it had been tied to massive cuts in spending (as Canada did for example) - but nooo, we had to have that ridiculous and bad Obamacare bill that should pretty well sink us completely in the next few years. 21 new taxes in the bill aimed at the middle and lower income brackets laced into a bill that does nothing for health care at all other than drive the costs through the roof. It will cause us to hit the skids again but shorter than 10 years.

The answer, that every person in this nation knows, is that we cannot spend more than we take in. We take in 2.9 Trillion every year - income taxes from only 52-53% of the working population with the top 6% of earners paying 65% of all income taxes paid. It seems we should be able to manage just fine on that - we are on a collision course with complete collapse and this administration is greasing the wheels with outrageous promises of more and more that we cannot afford and cannot pay for - logic should tell us all that it cannot continue.

Well, sorry, did not mean to write a small book. Have a good day