New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio issued a challenge to President Donald Trump and his “Republican enablers” Tuesday, calling on the President to release his tax returns and releasing his own.
De Blasio released his and his wife’s joint 2016 tax return on the day they were due to be filed and published a Medium blog post explaining the importance of paying a fair share of tax and stressing the widening wage gap.
“Tax time also confronts us with the cruel absurdity of what President Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress are doing,” the post read. “They want to slash sensible government investments in education, health care and other key areas that most Americans rely on and use that money to give a massive tax cut to the wealthy — the one segment of Americans who don’t need any help.”
De Blasio blasted Trump’s excuses to not release his tax returns publicly as a decision that makes “zero sense.”
“President Trump’s tax giveaway to the wealthiest among us makes zero sense, as does his decision to break decades of precedent and refuse to share his tax returns with the American people,” he wrote. “We won’t bore you with the endless excuses our president has made. We’ll just say this: No one forces any of us to run for public office, but those in public office must be transparent about our finances.”
De Blasio, of course, is not the first to call on Trump to release his returns. Trump has frequently been asked to release them by everyone from journalists to members of his own party. The decision even prompted massive rallies on Tax Day this past weekend to demand Trump release his return.
Trump has frequently cited an audit as the reason why he won’t release the returns, though the IRS has said that an audit would not prevent him from releasing them.
