Money Talks, Candidates Won't

Our would-be Presidents are telling us more than we may want to know about themselves, but on one subject, they are reticent.

For the first time in two decades, all the major candidates but Obama are stalling about releasing their tax returns. Why are they so embarrassed about revealing how rich they are?

John Edwards, who promised last week to tell us how much he was paid by a hedge fund which, among other things, makes predatory loans to the poor, seems to have changed his mind.

Rudy Giuliani is not eager to tell us how many millions he got by parlaying his 9/11 fame into $100,000-a-pop speaking engagements and from a consulting firm with some shady clients.

Both the Clintons are rightly shy about their income. since the former President alone raked in $31 million from making speeches in a five-year period.

Mitt Romney, who will tell us anything we want to know about Mormon attitudes toward polygamy and pre-marital sex, and John McCain, who will talk our ears off about the war in Iraq, are mute when it comes to discussing their incomes.

Only Barack Obama, a relative newcomer to big-league politics, is willing to let us know he and his wife had a total income of $1.67 million last year, mostly from his book royalties and advances.

As they go about making promises to protect the interests of the poor and middle class, our Presidents-in-waiting don’t want us to know how little they are feeling our pain.