There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. [M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.Wow. Now I've been hearing this crap about how the bottom half of Americans pay no taxes in the Right Wing Chamber for a while. The theory is that Democrats' strategy is to get most of American dependent on government transfer payments so they'll vote for liberals, destroying the country in the process by taxing the job creators to death.
The 47% number fits the style of Romney-Ryan. It's not an absolute lie, just totally misleading.
- The number refers to the percentage of American who pay federal income taxes. Many many more pay payroll taxes and local taxes, and of course everyone pays sales taxes.
- A big percentage of the 47% are Senior Citizens, who pay nothing because Social Security payouts are exempt. But of course most of them have paid lots of taxes throughout their lives.
- Another big chunk of the 47% are young people- students, low-wage workers who will soon be making enough money to crack the taxing barrier. These people will be paying federal income taxes in the future.
- Some are even multi-millionaires who had big paper losses and can carry over their capital loss, paying no income taxes in some years. Heck, Mitt Romney himself might even be in that category!
Krugman puts up this helpful graph:
So from ages 25 to 57 the percentage of Americans paying federal income taxes is around 70%. Include payroll taxes and it's more like 82%.
Krugman's commentary in his next post makes the point that what's going on here is that the intellectuals in the movement made up this meme to hoodwink and rile up the masses, only to find out that even the supposedly sophisticated Wall Street guys have come to believe it too!
Jon Chait is great on this stuff too, noting that Romney surprised him in that he clearly believes this stuff sincerely- Chait insists this isn't a pander to the audience, but looks more like his true beliefs.
I know that if Romney loses the election, then right wingers are going to blame the candidate, but really this is all about the right wing; Romney has had to move so far right that he's just over the cliff. If he says what the nuts want, he sounds like a nut. But he's too boxed in to "etch a sketch" back to the center with any credibility. I almost felt sorry for the guy, who seems to have no plausible message exept to tear down Obama. But after hearing this, I'm with Chait- he really believes it. I guess you're really a good pandering flip-flopper when you actually believe what you've flopped to.
The truth can set Mitt Romney free
ReplyDeleteUnder the prevailing definition of a gaffe — accidentally telling the truth — Mitt Romney is guilty, guilty, guilty. The only surprise is that he knew the truth all along and kept it to himself.
A tape from a May fund-raiser is rocking the campaign because Romney was “caught” accurately outlining our political polarization.
As a defining principle, the almost-half the nation backing President Obama wants government to do more. The other half backs Romney because it knows the government already does too much.
It is a financial fight, but also a cultural one. The entitlement mentality isn’t limited to those who earned or desperately need their country’s help.
We’re sinking because too many politicians like Obama think their job is to “level the playing field” by confiscating wealth from some Americans and giving it to others. First, they take a big cut for themselves and their friends.
It is a fact that nearly 47 percent, as Romney said, don’t have any skin in the game — they pay no federal income taxes. Not all are greedy, of course, but whatever the government spends is gravy to them. The more spending of other people’s money, the more gravy they get.
These clashing views about the role and size of government are what the 2012 campaign is about.
Until now, Romney has been too timid in saying so, while Obama has been more forthright in promising an ever bigger, more powerful state. Obama is winning that argument because he is a more talented politician and a better liar in claiming the endless goodies can be paid for by hiking taxes on the top 2 percent. His road leads to Greece, with stops for insolvency and soaring unemployment.
No matter. Who can resist free stuff, especially when the president says go ahead, everybody else does it? And you deserve it because society is rigged against you and America is unjust. Is there any doubt the vagabonds taunting cops and making life miserable for working New Yorkers will vote for Obama, if they bother to vote?
So now, Romney is on the record saying all this much more clearly than ever, although he was reckless in appearing to fault half the population. Still, he’s stuck with the message, and repeated it Monday, saying, “The president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because frankly, my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them.”
Romney was also succinctly savvy on foreign policy. He accused the president of believing “his magnetism and his charm and his persuasiveness is so compelling that he can sit down with people like [Vladimir] Putin and [Hugo] Chávez and [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, and that they’ll find that we’re such wonderful people that they’ll go on with us, and they’ll stop doing bad things.” He added, “It’s an extraordinarily naive perception.”
That naivete was true even before the terrorist attack on our Libyan embassy and anti-American riots broke out in most Arab countries. But Obama clings to denial about Islamic fundamentalism because to admit it would demolish his self-aggrandizing “great man” theory Romney aptly described.
Romney also said that Palestinians “are committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel” and that, as a result, there was little chance of a settlement. Ha — another gaffe! Because Romney is right about the nation’s divide, he may lose the election no matter what he does. But defeat will be far more bitter if he doesn’t give voters his honest assessment of where America is headed. Over the next 48 days, he owes 100 percent candor to 100 percent of us.