Evaluating a Job Applicant

Much ado is being made over presidential candidates' tax returns these days. The biggest to do is over 2012 presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's -- or the fact that he won't make the past several years public. His attitude is pretty much, None Of Our Business.

Yet we learn that Romney gave 2008 presidential candidate John McCain 23 years of his returns when McCain was considering Romney as a vice-presidential running mate. That was part of McCain's "vetting" process, we are told.

Romney's recently announced running mate Paul Ryan told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week" that he provided several years of his tax returns to Romney as part of Romney's "vetting" of Ryan.

What strikes me in all of this kerfuffle is that even though Romney would have served in John McCain's administration, had McCain chosen Romney to be on his ticket and won the election, and that the same would be true of Ryan and Romney, neither Romney nor Ryan would have been working for the presidential candidate who tapped them. Both would have been working for us, The People.

The same is true of the presidential candidates themselves. Romney would be, just as President Obama is, working for us. Thus, we should be vetting them. Tax returns provide vital information about not just where and how they accumulate assets, but what they do with those assets. We should demand that their returns be made available for public scrutiny. Should they refuse to do so, as Romney has done to date, that should be considered a deduction from their qualifications.

Just as we as employers in evaluating the qualifications of job applicants -- be they direct employees for a business, a contractor to reroof our house, a plumber to plug a leak, a babysitter to care for our children -- if they refuse to provide information we think pertinent to their character or ability, would we hire them anyway?