Rick Santorum Moves the Goal Posts

At the last debate between Bob Casey and Rick Santorum, there was a brief discussion over tax returns. Casey said he'd release his and asked Rick to do the same.

Rick agreed, then added something about how embarrassing it would be because he has so little money. Or something like that.

Well, check out James O'Toole's piece in today's P-G. Rick's moved the goal posts - but he didn't get the move right. Take a look:

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's re-election campaign said the incumbent Republican would release his tax returns only if his opponent, Democratic state Treasurer Bob Casey, agreed to release his public schedule for the past year.[emphasis added]

But...

At their debate in Philadelphia Monday, Mr. Casey challenged Mr. Santorum to release the tax data. Mr. Santorum immediately agreed. He noted that it might take some time to assemble the paperwork but placed no conditions on the promised disclosure at the time.[emphasis added]

But maybe someone's misquoting or misconstruing. But check out what it says over at the Santorum blog, it says this:

Question seven, Casey asks Santorum: I’m going to release five years of my tax returns tomorrow, will you?

Santorum says, yes I will release them, if that’s what you want. [bold text in original]

To be fair, the Santorum Blog describes itself as:

...a grassroots site dedicated to keeping Santorum supporters and political nerds up-to-date with the latest breaking Senate race news. The Santorum Blog is not affiliated with or authorized by the Santorum for Senate Campaign. [bold text in original]

So it's not official - but I think we can safely assume that if anyone Rick's friends at the grassroots would be the ones to quote him clearly.

But take a look at this from his campaign:

[Santorum's] campaign press secretary, Virginia Davis, said yesterday that the tax returns were now ready for release. She offered to allow reporters to examine them privately, but insisted that the tax data would not be released for publication until Mr. Casey agreed to disclose his public schedule for the last year.

So they're ready to be released, but they won't be until Casey releases to the public something that's already public. Does this look to anyone else that Rick's playing for time?

"As to our public schedule, he can read the newspapers,'' [Casey's Press Secretary Larry] Smar added. "By definition, public schedule is public."

I guess not.

The next paragraph might lead to a few scratched heads. But it opens up a whole big can of worms for Rick.

Mr. Smar also took the opportunity to revisit the Casey campaign's previous criticism of Mr. Santorum for failing to release records of a charity that he formed, which at times employed members of his campaign staff.

Luckily, I wrote about Rick's "charity" some time ago. Seems that Senator Man-on-Dog's been using his charity, Operation Good Neighbor, to shuttle some $$$ to staffers. I quoted the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Sen. Rick Santorum's charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period - well below Better Business Bureau standards - paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll, records show.

The charity, Operation Good Neighbor, provides grants to small nonprofit groups, many of them religious.

The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance says charitable organizations should spend at least 65 percent of their total expenses on program activities.

And, if that weren't enough, the treasurer of Rick's "charity" was at one time a woman named Barbara Bonfiglio - who in turn was the treasurer for Santorum's PAC, called "America's Foundation." I quoted the American Prospect:

According to one expert, Santorum appears to reap personal benefits from America’s Foundation, the so-called leadership PAC controlled by Santorum, which has raised some $5 million from wealthy donors and business PACs over the last five years. The stated purpose of America’s Foundation is to support other GOP candidates, but the Prospect found that the committee spends considerably less on direct candidate aid than comparable PACs, and considerably more on operating expenses -- declaring hundreds of small- to medium-sized meals and purchases by Santorum or his political staff to be “campaign-related.”

And then there's something I just found at American Prospect. As of March of this past year,

...the foundation is not registered with the Pennsylvania Department of State. A spokeswoman for the state agency said that any charity that solicits and raises more than $25,000 in Pennsylvania is required by law to register. Records included on the foundation’s 2002 tax filing list $94,000 in donations from sources in the state. State law says that violators of the registration law run the risk of civil penalties and possible legal action by the state.

The piece ends with this:

Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project, a good-government group, questioned why Operation Good Neighbor would hire lobbyists and political operatives instead of charity professionals. “It looks like another pocket to fill,” Ruskin said, adding: “Senator Santorum is obviously a man with many pockets.”

So when will we be seeing Rick Santorum's tax returns?

Rick Santorum - a man with many pockets