Why March to Demand President Trump Release His Taxes?

Gun-loving, flag-waving Tea Party conservative, or “tree-hugging,” marriage-equality-supporting liberal, or anyone in between: Math is still math. You have to have tax receipts to fund local, state and federal government.

If you’re a liberal you might want to see more spent on national parks. You might think gorgeous mountain vistas and ancient sequoia trees are worth preserving. If you’re a conservative, you might want to spend more on defense. The U.S. Air Force, for example, estimates that the “Mother of all Bombs” (M.O.A.B.) dropped on ISIS this week cost $170,000. If reports are true and 96 ISIS fighters were wiped out you might think that was a fine use of tax dollars. Unfortunately, when citizens don’t pay the government can neither repair hiking trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park nor blow up cutthroats in Afghanistan.

Mt. LeConte in Great Smokey Mountain National Park.

Math is still math. Someone must pay.

(Or you can watch deficits grow.)

And that brings us to the matter of Donald J. Trump and his taxes. When he was running for office, he promised to release his tax records. True, in one interview he grumbled about how the country was being run and told Chuck Todd, “Unlike everybody else, I try to pay as little as possible, because I hate what they do with my money.”

There was no way of knowing from that interview exactly what he hated about how the government was using his money. Perhaps Mr. Trump hated paying for courts. After all, he was about to be nailed for $25 million in damages, essentially for running a scam: Trump University. Certainly, he had made it clear he didn’t like paying taxes for President Obama to go to Martha’s Vineyard or anywhere else on vacation—and really hated paying when Mr. Obama went golfing.

Then Trump won the election and turned into a golfing fool!

In the meantime, we know the President’s frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago are costing all of us as much as $3 million per trip (although some estimates put the figure at only $1 million per jaunt). But if he keeps up the current pace, even at a cool million—enough to buy six more M.O.A.B. bombs—he’ll end up spending more on vacation travels in one term than Mr. Obama did in eight years in office.

That’s the crux of the tax matter. Bombs aren’t cheap. Secret Service protection for Mr. Trump, including while golfing, isn’t cheap. Personally, I can’t stand the man. But I don’t mind paying to keep even a fool in the Oval Office safe from harm. Paying for Mrs. Trump to stay behind in New York City while the couple’s young son finishes the school year assuredly isn’t cheap. In fact, Fortune magazine estimates it cost New York City $24 million to secure Trump Tower just between Election Day and Inauguration. And if citizens won’t pay their share then you can’t cover the Medicaid bills piled up by all the old white folks who voted by wide margins (58% to 39%) to put Mr. Trump in the White House. Medicare isn’t cheap.

You can look it up.

In the end the overarching issue isn’t even math. It’s fairness. If you are one of the superrich and don’t pay taxes, while the local bar owner, the teacher in your child’s private school and the working wife of a soldier doing duty in Iraq to protect your sorry asses do pay taxes, you aren’t patriotic Americans.

You’re parasites.

That’s why, like 74% of Americans, including 49% of Trump supporters, I want to peruse the President’s tax returns. I want to be sure the man who promises to “Make America Great Again” is paying part of the cost to make greatness possible.

And it’s no secret that many of the superrich don’t pay at all. A Congressional investigation in 2014 into practices at Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s largest bank, uncovered 22,000 accounts belonging to U.S. citizens who decided they’d like to enjoy the benefits of living in a great country without paying a dime to repair burned bridges, insure clean air or fund fire departments—or, really, pay for anything at all. When the superrich a (worldwide) hide $21 to $32 trillion in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, as Newsweek reported last April they did, you face an obvious problem. You can’t fight ISIS—a threat to us all—without tax dollars for the military. You can’t fight the spread of Zika, either.

So we need to know.

Is President Trump paying his share to fight terrorists—to safeguard the health of elderly Americans—or even to keep his own family safe?

Or is he the greatest hypocrite in American history?

If you're a patriot don't you pay taxes to support the military?
(All photos from April 15 protest in Cincinnati.)

Protesting: A First Amendment right.
Three out of four Americans want to see Trump's taxes.

A young lady shows her sentiments.

The people who are protesting love this country, too.

If retired teachers pay taxes, shouldn't President Trump and everyone else?

Even the police keeping the peace are paid for by tax dollars.
Does Donald Trump pay his fair share or not?