Romney Interviewed in Israel } If you paid over your taxes you should be disqualified for the Presidency…what??

 

T Mitt Romney: Thank you David

Muir: As we sit here in beautiful Jerusalem 100 da 

 Romney’s interviewed in Israel. The main questions is wether he paid the taxes in the USA. One of  his responses is that if he had pay more taxes than due, that should disqualify him for being president. Stranger I never heard that, usually a politician would say than paying  less than his taxes should should have disqualified the candidate:

 Romney: You know, I'm not talking politics right here today but obviously I'm encouraged by the campaign but today being in the holy city my thoughts are on the great promises that have been made here, the people who gather here of multiple faiths and my desire to see those people see each other as being brothers and sisters and come together in peace.

Muir: Let's talk about the news that came out of Israel today on Iran, some strong words expected from you in that speech. One of your advisors said of you today that you would respect Israel's decision to strike Iran on its own. Would you support an Israeli strike on Iran?

Romney: I think I'll use my own terms in that regard and that is that I recognize the right of Israel to defend itself. At the same time we are two nations, both committed to employing every means we have to keep Iran from pursuing their nuclear folly and that means every diplomatic course, economic forces as well, sanctions are beginning to have a greater impact on Iran we want to execute all of these elements of soft power if you will but of course we maintain all options. If all of our political and economic options fail we of course retain military options as well.

Muir: What about the option of the Israeli strike, unilaterally, would you support that?

Romney: Again, I think I've said what I wanted to say on that front which is I respect the right of Israel to defend itself and America always on the side of Israel but I'm not going to be more specific than that with regards to the actions Israel might take but we have a full range of options to dissuade Iran from doing something which is unimaginable and unacceptable.

Muir: You talk about some of those options, diplomacy, tough sanctions, it sounds a lot like what we hear from the Obama administration.

Romney: You know I gave an address five years ago at the Herizleya conference in Tel Aviv and laid out 7 steps that I thought needed to be taken to dissuade Iran from becoming nuclear. It's taken a long time for some of those steps to be executed some are still not yet executed. Being on foreign soil, I simply don't want to attack the president or his policies and nor make new foreign policy but I indicated a number of things that I thought were important at that point, the fact that we have sanctions now three and a half years into the president's term is in my estimation a positive thing I would have liked to see them earlier as my speech at Herzliya indicated.

Muir: You've talked about back in the states, I know that you are on foreign soil but you have been critical before with the presidents timetable to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and in your recent speech before the VFW you said you wanted to complete the transition by 2014 is that the same time frame?

Romney: It's the same time frame the president is speaking of with regards to the transition of the afghan forces, I also indicated that I want to make sure that we have had consultation with the commanders on the ground. The place where the president and I have had a difference with regards to time table is with withdrawal of our surge troops. Commanders were looking at December 2012 withdrawal point the president moves that up to September 2012 which is still during fighting season I sided with the commanders and felt the 2012 decision, the September 2012 decision was premature.

Muir: 2012

Romney: We're talking about the search troops.

Muir: Ok, wanted to confirm for the audience. If those commanders on the ground in Afghanistan tell you that we need US troops to stay longer would you keep them there beyond that 2014?

Romney: I don't want to go into hypothetical's but we recognize the circumstances may change on the ground either for the better or for the worse. I don't think you set hard and fast deadlines without recognizing that there is the potential for conditions to change.

Muir: You are open to it depending on what the commanders might tell you?

Romney: I will consider the council if I'm president I would consider the input of the commanders on the ground as an important element in the plans for our military.

Muir: You are here on what some have termed your world audition and democrats, not surprisingly, continue to hammer you back home on taxes, you remain firm two years and two years only. So from what you have released and from what we have seen we know that there was one year when you paid about 13.9% tax rate. Can we clear this up by asking a simple yes or no question? Was there ever any year when you paid lower than 13.9%?

Romney: I haven't calculated that. I'm happy to go back and look but my view is I've paid all the taxes required by law. From time to time I've been audited as happens I think to other citizens as well and the accounting firm which prepares y taxes has done a very thorough and complete job pay taxes as legally due. I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president. I'd think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires.

Muir: You said you would go back and look, would you look for us?

Romney: I haven't looked at the tax rate paid year by year. I know that I pay a very substantial amount of taxes and every year since the beginning of my career so far as I can recall.

Muir: Let's talk about London for a moment, we saw the photo ops with you and Ann at the Olympics, it must have been amazing to return to the Olympics as you often do. On your barrage of negative headlines there in London I wanted to read you something that Karl Rove said, he said: "you have to shake your head, it was a great opportunity instead he got stuck making comments the Brits took as an insult". I'm curious, did you know when you sent that that the British people might be a little offended given how excited they were about their own games?

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