Here is what Mitt Romney should say without further delay:

I hereby make public all hitherto unpublished information about my income taxes. It was a lapse of judgment on my part not to have done this sooner. I am proud to pay taxes. As the press will learn when it examines the records I have released, there is nothing in this material that denotes any illegality.

I hope that my example will be followed by others. In fact, the press, which clamored for the action I have now taken, should get behind a move to make tax returns public records generally. Much more personal financial information is disclosed to strangers routinely by Americans every time they apply for credit. As Justice Louis Brandeis correctly observed, sunlight is an effective disinfectant. The amount of tax cheating in this country is a national disgrace, all of it aided and abetted by the secrecy surrounding the payment of income taxes. The U.S. treasury loses an estimated $300 billion a year to the cheats.

Americans rightly abhor the national debt. They can reduce it markedly without paying a penny in added taxes. All they need to do is tell their lawmakers they should insist that the freeloaders pay their fair share. Mark my word, in a Romney administration freeloading will be a thing of the past.