Wash. Post, WSJ editorial pages urged release of tax returns by Teresa Heinz Kerry, but have yet to call for Cindy McCain's

During the 2004 presidential campaign, the editorial pages of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal called on Sen. John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, to release her tax returns, with The Wall Street Journal citing the role Heinz Kerry's wealth purportedly played in her husband's presidential campaign. But according to a Media Matters for America search of editorials since January 1,* the Post and Journal have yet to call for the release of Cindy McCain's tax returns, despite the role her personal fortune has reportedly played in the presidential campaign of her husband, Sen. John McCain.

Additionally, while The Washington Times called on Cindy McCain to release her tax returns in March, it has not revisited the subject since the McCain campaign made clear that she would not do so. In a March 21 editorial, the Times asserted that Cindy McCain's "holdings are no doubt both extensive and inseparable from Mr. McCain's own personal and political fortunes. ... What do we know about the Clintons and the McCains? Neither couple has done the proper thing. Both need to disclose." During the 2004 presidential campaign, the Times called on Heinz Kerry to release her tax returns in editorials on July 27, 2004, and August 5, 2004.

In an April 27 New York Times article, Barry Meier and Margot Williams reported that McCain's campaign used a corporate jet owned by his wife's company, Hensley & Co., "over a seven-month period beginning last summer" and that "[f]or five of those months, the plane was used almost exclusively for campaign-related purposes." Meier and Williams added that "McCain's campaign was able to use his wife's corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign's actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit."

On April 18, the McCain campaign released John McCain's 2006 and 2007 income tax returns, but not Cindy McCain's separate returns. As part of John McCain's tax returns, the campaign released the "Wages and Salaries" that Cindy McCain received in 2006 and 2007 as chair of Hensley & Co., the McCains' share of interest income from a bank account, and their shares of income from John McCain's book royalties. But the information did not reveal the capital gains income, if any, for Cindy McCain from that period. The campaign stated: "In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns." The New York Times reported that "Mrs. McCain, who has a significant stake in a beer distributorship in Phoenix that her late father helped found, is far wealthier than her husband. The company is valued at $100 million or more, published estimates say."

Unlike Cindy McCain, Heinz Kerry did release what The New York Times reported on October 16, 2004, was a "two-page document" showing "total income of $5,073,554 last year" that enabled the Times to determine how much she had benefited from the Bush tax cuts, which John McCain supports extending permanently. An analysis of how the McCains have benefited from the tax cuts is not possible, based on the information his campaign has released on Cindy McCain's income.

In contrast with the Post and Journal, The New York Times asserted in a May 4 editorial that "[t]here is no question that Mr. McCain benefits from his wife's money" and that "Mrs. McCain, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, is not the candidate, but the need to gain public trust and to air potential conflicts of interest is vital." From the May 4 editorial:

Last month, Mr. McCain released two years' tax returns. That is better than none. But it has long been the practice for general election presidential candidates to release tax filings going back a lot further, and Senator Barack Obama has done just that.

The portrait of Mr. McCain's finances is particularly skimpy because his wife, Cindy McCain, has chosen not to make her separate tax returns available. Mrs. McCain, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, is not the candidate, but the need to gain public trust and to air potential conflicts of interest is vital. Four years ago, we urged Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wealthy wife of the 2004 Democratic nominee, to release her tax returns.

There is no question that Mr. McCain benefits from his wife's money, including his low-cost use during the campaign of a corporate jet owned by a company headed by Mrs. McCain.

From the May 4, 2004, Washington Post editorial:

Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of the putative Democratic presidential nominee, should make her tax returns public. Ms. Heinz Kerry has been reluctant to do so; campaign spokesman Michael Meehan now says she is preparing to make summary information available, though not necessarily her return itself. That's an improvement over no disclosure, but it is short of what ought to be done.

Presidential candidates aren't legally required to release their tax returns, but such disclosure has become an expected part of seeking the office, and rightly so. The wrinkle for the Kerrys is that, unlike most political couples, the candidate and his wife, who inherited a fortune from her first husband, the late Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.), file separate returns. [...] Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has made his returns public for years, but his wife has been reluctant to follow suit.

[...]

We're sympathetic to the feeling of intrusion that releasing tax returns entails, but candidates for president -- and their spouses -- necessarily relinquish a significant measure of privacy. Meanwhile, tax returns provide information not contained in financial disclosure forms, such as charitable contributions and the use of tax shelters.

From The Wall Street Journal July 1, 2004, editorial:

[I]t's past time for his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, to release her full filings with the IRS.

[...]

Given Mrs. Heinz Kerry's fortune, estimated by the Los Angeles Times at between $900 million and $3.2 billion, it's unlikely she is doing anything unethical to raise the money for a mortgage, like the Clintons. But the Heinz fortune has already played a key role in financing Senator Kerry's political ambitions.

When his primary campaign was running out of cash last year, Mr. Kerry mortgaged his half of the couple's Beacon Hill house for $6.4 million.

[...]

The Kerrys would be the richest couple ever to live in the White House, and with wealth comes responsibility. Their assets should be disclosed to the voters so that they can assess whether there are any potential conflicts of interest. Since the Kerry campaign is proposing to raise tax rates on the upper middle class, most people would probably like to know whether the Kerry household uses tax-avoidance techniques to avoid paying its "fair share."

From the July 27, 2004, Washington Times editorial (retrieved from the Nexis news database):

In recent decades, voters have rightly expected the presidential and vice presidential nominees to disclose their tax returns, including the tax returns of their spouses, if they were filed separately. Indeed, there is precedent. Twenty years ago, John Zaccaro, husband of Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, yielded to public pressure and disclosed his separately filed income-tax returns. Prior and subsequent to Mr. Zaccaro's financial disclosures, there was no indication that his personal wealth had been used to regularly resurrect his wife's political career. Today, why should the tax returns of Mr. Kerry's wealthy wife remain under wraps, particularly since he has clearly exploited his wife's wealth for his political advantage?

From the August 5, 2004, Washington Times editorial (from Nexis):

The time has long past for Teresa Heinz Kerry to end the free ride she has been enjoying ever since she used her immense inherited wealth for the second time in less than eight years to resuscitate her husband's faltering political career. She needs to reveal the details of her finances, which Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has deftly exploited to his maximum political benefit -- first during his tightly contested 1996 Senate race and then during this year's Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses.

*Search terms in Nexis: publication (Washington Post OR Washington Times) AND section (editor!) AND McCain AND tax! between January 1, 2008 and May 5, 2008

Search terms in Factiva: The Wall Street Journal AND McCain AND tax! AND review and outlook between January 1, 2008 and May 5, 2008