Have voters gotten their fill of billionaire businessmen keeping their personal finances secret while asking for the public's trust in fiscal matters?
Property developer Rick Caruso is testing that question as a candidate for Los Angeles mayor. Seeking a job that would put him at the center of public finance in America's second largest city, Caruso has flatly refused to release tax information that would allow voters to assess his integrity in financial matters.
The information that Caruso has released is worse than useless for making that determination. It's so sketchy that it's insulting — indeed, it suggests that Caruso thinks that L.A. voters are so uninterested in the issue, or so incapable to notice that he's left out critical information, that they must be idiots.
