North Country Girl wrote on 04/05/14 at 14:24:33:Mr. Allen, both Rangel and Geithner are a scourge on the Democratic Party. A crook is a crook, and crooks must go regardless of party affiliation.. Which means that Mr. Romney is also a crook having paid no taxes for ten years and stashing millions of dollars in offshore accounts. Thank God a crook of this magnitude is not our president.
I can get behind most of this sentiment except for the Romney part. There is a huge difference between the Romney situation and the others - in that Romney took advantage of rules that were put in place by people in the government long before to encourage him to act in the manner that he did. In other words, he broke no laws and followed all the rules, or he would be in jail.
Where, on the flip side, Rangel, Geithner and all the masses of others broke laws that would see a "regular" citizen such as you and me put away for decades. But due to their positions of power and influence they were able to make the penalty for their crime go away. This is where the "rules for thee, but not for me" sentiment comes from, politicians make the rules for us but do not follow them themselves.
Obama and his associates seem adept at avoiding the penaties associated with their crimes but, when a law-abiding citizen (you mentioned Romeny) follows the rules set in place, they are derided and denigrated as cheats and criminals. Another member and I went round and round because he fixated on a % of income paid by Romney in taxes and I focused on $ paid by Romney in taxes, an amount I would not earn in my lifetime let alone pay in a taxes. Something like 3-5 million in one year - in my book after the first million in taxes paid each year I think you can take a break. All that waste....