EXTRA: Rauner differs self from Trump on tax-return tactic

I almost feel sorry these days for Gov. Bruce Rauner.
 

RAUNER: Wants Trump voters, but not political baggage

He has gone to extremes to try to put distance between himself and his supposed partisan political ally – President-elect Donald Trump. To the point where his refusal to say anything about Donald has become laughable.

YET IF YOU look at the election results from Tuesday night in Illinois, we leaned largely Democrat. The only gains that can be attributed to Republicans were the pickups of some legislative seats in rural parts of the state where Trump’s presidential aspirations were predominate.

It can be argued that despite the millions of dollars that Rauner spent of his money and that of his business-oriented friends to influence the elections in his favor, the real swaying factor was Trump.

I suspect that the reason those Republicans succeeded in beating off rural Democrats was because of the Trump coat-tails. I suspect those voters wanted to pick people they thought would be allied with Trump, and probably would be more than willing to sacrifice Rauner in an instant if put to the choice.

But does this mean that Rauner is now going to have to sway himself to the ideological idiosyncrasies of the Trump types of people? I suspect Rauner himself desperately wants to stay away from that stuff. Aside from wanting to dump on organized labor, our governor has tried to stay away from other social issues.

SO HOW CAN he differentiate himself from Trump without going too far so as to irritate the many rural voters he’s desperately going to need come his own 2018 re-election bid?

Personally, I’m inclined to think that Rauner making public on Friday his income tax return for 2015 is one such step – largely because it is one that Trump himself has yet to make; and probably will go out of his way to avoid doing for as long as he lives.

It’s just enough of a gesture to appease the progressive mentality – most of which will never be able to comprehend making so much money in their lives. While not touching on the social issues that would thoroughly offend the ideologues amongst us.

MUNGER: Should she have expected larger donation?

For the record, Rauner, a former venture capitalist with personal wealth, reported having income during 2015 of $188.2 million, of which he paid $43.3 million in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $6.9 million to the Illinois Department of Revenue.

WHICH IS SOME $50.2 million more paid in taxes than indicated in any tax return ever provided by Trump himself. At least we’ll have an idea now of what kind of finances our governor deals with – or how he can afford to provide so much money to try to buy political posts for people who would be allied with him in Illinois state government.

Although Rauner indicated he and his family foundation have made charitable donations totaling $11.6 million – which is something we’d all like to think we’d do ourselves if we had the kind of money to afford it.

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