Dear Romney/Ryan Campaign,

Recently, while appearing on "Fox News Sunday," vice presidential candidate and Congressman Paul Ryan declined, yet again, to explain the specifics of the Romney/Ryan tax plan.  The claim is that Romney/Ryan tax reform will be "revenue neutral," because the tax cuts they want to make would be balanced by closing presumably unfair or exploitable loopholes in the tax code.  (To me, this begs the question, if there are unfair loopholes in the tax code, why not just close them, full stop, regardless of accompanying tax cuts?)  In more specific terms, Ryan said that explaining the details of the plan "would take me too long to go through all the math."  (This is known as the "Don't worry your pretty little head about it, America.  You just concentrate on lookin' good and leave the tough stuff to us," defense.  This is also known as the "I forgot there's this thing called the internet where people can read all about seriously complicated stuff at their leisure and according to their interests," defense.) This is problematic because not everyone agrees that your math works, and in the inimitable words of another Republican, President Ronald Reagan, I'd like to be able to "trust, but verify."

I thought it might bear mentioning--seeing as we're two days away from the first presidential debate--that running for president is, in fact, a lengthy, expensive, wide-ranging job interview.  The American people are deciding whom to hire to head up the executive branch of our representative government--you guys or the incumbents.

If I were interviewing someone to babysit my two-year-old for a couple of hours one afternoon while I went to the Panera Bread (PUMPKIN COOKIES OMNOMNOM!!) four minutes from my house to work on my MomsRising blog, and I asked them, "Are you CPR qualified?" and their answer was, "It's kind of a long story and I don't really have time to explain everything, but, just, you know, you can trust me," guess who would be sitting on her living room couch, writing her blog with one hand and playing Little People Stow n' Tow Garage with the other?

Yours truly,

Kelly Singleton Dalton

P.S.  I'll be watching your debate performances this week with a MomsRising Bingo card in my hand.  If anyone calls the issues important to me (health care, family-friendly work policies, fair pay, equal rights) "side issues," "distractions," or just generally indicates they think so-called "women's issues" deserve big honking eye-rolls, they get negative one million points.

P.P.S. I am registered to vote, but if I weren't, this is what I would use to register.