The Nation: Nothing to Hide

In politics, it is becoming the year of the open book. Incumbents and challengers alike are distributing their tax returns and net worth statements — everything, including accounts of the egg money, it seems — to prove their honesty. When one prospective Democratic challenger made public ten years' worth of tax returns, Republican Senator Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma went to the Internal Revenue Service bent on novel oneupmanship. Audit my returns for the last ten years, he proposed, and we'll announce the results.

The Oklahoma City IRS office turned Bellmon down for sound bureaucratic...

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