The new financial details came as the Santorum and the Romney campaigns converged in their newest battleground of Michigan, trading brickbats over who was most opposed to the auto industry bailout and labor unions.
Romney also effectively killed a
March 1 debate
in Georgia by deciding to back out, leaving just one such event between now and Super Tuesday on March 6.
Meanwhile, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who is attempting to stage a third comeback in the race, capped a fundraising tour in California, where the campaign said it had raised $2 million so far this year.
Santorum has sought to play down the money he made as a Washington consultant-for-hire after his time in the Senate, focusing instead on his working-class background and socially conservative beliefs. The strategy helped produce a spate of primary victories and a rapid rise in the polls, leaving him as the main rival to Romney in Michigan and other upcoming contests.
But the tax returns released by his campaign could serve to remind voters of his strong ties to Washington, where he and his wife earned as much as $1.1 million a year after he left Congress in 2007. Much of Santorum’s income was earned from contracts with firms such as Pennsylvania-based Consol Energy, though Santorum never registered as a lobbyist, disclosure records show.
He paid federal income taxes ranging from $167,000 in 2007 to $310,000 in 2009. Santorum said during a CNN interview that he felt “very blessed” in his financial success after leaving Congress, but said he and his wife also had a “couple setbacks” that forced them to take out a series of mortgages on their house.
“I felt very successful in . . . you know, making money,” Santorum said during the Wednesday night appearance, adding: “Also was very successful in paying taxes.”
Personal tax rates have become a flashpoint in the presidential race largely because of Romney, a multimillionaire former equity fund manager who pays about half the tax rate of his rivals because most of his income comes from investments. President Obama and other Democrats have proposed a higher rate for such income, an idea generally opposed by Republicans.
Santorum paid an effective federal tax rate of about 28 percent from 2007 to 2011, well above the 13.9 percent rate paid by Romney in 2010, according to returns released by the two candidates.
Gingrich paid about 32 percent of his $3.2 million income in taxes in 2010, according to his federal returns. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) is the only major presidential candidate who has not released his returns, joking in one debate that he would be embarrassed by his lack of wealth.
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