Romney: ‘Nothing hidden’ in withheld tax returns

{mosads}But Democrats are intensifying pressure on Romney to release additional tax returns after a report in Vanity Fair last weekend questioned his financial holdings in offshore accounts in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

“What’s important, if you are running for president, is that the American people know who you are and what you’ve done, and that you’re an open book,” President Obama said Tuesday in an interview with New Hampshire television station WMUR. “And that’s been true of every presidential candidate dating all the way back to Mitt Romney’s father.”

In speech excerpts provided by the Obama campaign of Vice President Biden’s prepared remarks to the National Council of La Raza’s annual meeting in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the vice president again plans to hammer Romney on the issue.

“When his father, George Romney, was a candidate for President in 1968, he released 12 years of tax returns because, as he said, ‘One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show,’ ” Biden plans to say. “His son has released one year of his tax returns. Making a lie of the old adage: Like father, like son.”

Romney, however, said in the interview with Radio Iowa that the president was attempting to distract from more substantive issues.

“I understand the president’s going to try to do anything he can to divert attention from the fact that his jobs record is weak and he has no plan to make things better,” Romney said.