Bill Clinton on Romney tax return: voters must decide

Former president Bill Clinton suggests voters will decide if Mitt Romney released enough information about his income and tax returns.

Speaking to “Face the Nation” on CBS News in New York this morning, Clinton said Romney’s release of his 2011 tax return Friday is skewed.

The last two years, Romney hasn’t received any regular income due to his run for president, Clinton said.

Most of Romney’s $13,696,951 earnings came from capital gains, which the US taxes at 15 percent by law.

Clinton lauded Romney’s contributions to charity and the Mormon Church, but suggested there’s little information anyone can glean from one year of reporting.

“It would be interesting, I think, for the American people to see how the ordinary years were treated, but apparently we’re not going to see that, so the voters will just have to make up their minds,” Clinton said.

Clinton said four years ago, Republican nominee John McCain released two years, but had filed Senate returns leading up to the 2008 election.

More from GlobalPost: Romney tax returns show he paid $1.9 million in taxes in 2011

When he was president, Clinton said he made about 10 years of tax returns public.

Clinton touched on a number of topics, including:

On Hillary’s run for president in 2016, “We ought to give her a chance to organize her life and decide what she wants to do.”

On Obama’s chances, it will be close thanks to Republican efforts to “reduce the number of young people, first generation immigrants, and minorities voting. And they have worked hard at this.”

On Romney’s infamous 47 percent comment, an “enormous number of these people who were dropped out were dropped out for reasons of work and family, not dependents. These people are working their hearts out.”

On Congress, after November 6, “the incentives for gridlock will go way down and the incentives for action will go way up.”

More from GlobalPost: Bill Clinton makes case for Obama at DNC