You do sometimes wonder if Mitt Romney is trying his hardest not to get elected. In his latest attempt to make sure Obama is voted back into the White House, he has blown a massive raspberry in the face of the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax.
Putting aside for now that the payment of income Tax is dodgy ground for a man who invests in funds based in the Cayman Islands, and has accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg but 47% of the electorate is a lot of votes flying out the window.
To announce that you don't care about the large proportion of Americans who pay no federal income tax is not the smartest move less than fifty days before you try and convince the same people that you are the person best places to serve them but who are the 47% Mitt doesn't care about? Luckily the Tax Policy Centre has done a handy breakdown.
Just over 53% of Americans pay income tax and of the rest, 28.3% qualify for enough tax credits and deductions to take their liability to zero. Many of those deductions, like earned income credit and child credit are part of the Bush-era tax cuts that Mitt Romney supported, and wants to extend and they still contribute towards payroll taxes, which fund social security and Medicare benefits.
The elderly and retired make up 10.3% and aren't taxed on their pension which leaves just under 7% who have an income below $20,000 a year and fall below the threshold for paying federal income tax.
So if you are retired, in receipt of tax credits or on a low wage then Mitt doesn't care much for you and i would be wondering that if he sees the job as President as not to help the poorest and most needy in society, then who exactly will he be there to help?
The only consolation for Republican voters who want to see the walking gaffe-machine Romney in the Presidents chair is that he has his feet in his mouth so often now that soon he won't be able to speak at all.
12 comments:
like any of the 47% are going to vote to lower welfare, social security, housing, food, or health care beneifts... right. he did not lose a vote. plus, except for the elderly, most of the 47% don't vote. why should they. they've gotten all these goodies for years without even voting...
q
ps - this is exactly what i shared 2 days ago...
With a good portion of the people that he's just labelled as 'welfare dependents' being the voting elderly, it's quite right that he hasn't lost a vote. He's lost an absolute shitload of them.
Emergency press conferences don't get organised for gaffes that don't cost any votes...
Don't you just love the American ethos: If you don't become a millionaire then starve!
The problem is that 1% of Murkicans have ended up with most of the wealth. Funny thing that!
If you were a thinker, you'd think that perhaps opportunity is rather unequal, that perhaps the Oligarchs and Politicians have made all the rules to advantage themselves.
If you were a thinker!
if you were a thinker you wouldn't use extremes as your primary theme dg. your apparent emotions of anger/hate come out as your clear message. Your extreme comments wipe out your few credible thoughts and only work with other people that are angry/hate.
america isn't just millionaires and poor. millionaires make up 2% or 3%. about 45% of america is middle class income.
consider these changes under the government primarily controlled by democrats in the house and senate from 1930 to 2012.
in 1920 no americans got federal aid. by 1980 it 20%. Today it is 47%. in the 1960's LBJ and dems took FDR's vision to a new level.
in 100 years we flipped from a nation of independent individuals to a nation where 50% are dependent on others. they expect it, they have an entitlement mentality.
since LBJ the message that has been broadcast in the news, on TV, by the federal government, and by democrats is: "you have a RIGHT to "free" healthcare, subsidized food, subsidized housing, subsidized transportation, free birth control, and free abortions." all you have to do is vote for democrats!
so, congrats democrats, you have turned america into a nation of dependents for your own good!
ike said "if you want protection go to prison. they provide food, housing, and healthcare. all you give up is your freedom." well said ike.
half of us get free stuff, have of us pay for it...
q
Heh... and some Americans have the cheek to call us Europeans 'socialists' and 'welfare statists'...
Anyway, here is another good angle on why Mitt's 47% line was so incredibly stupid.
It's instructive that the fallout is hitting Romney from both sides of the political fence here, not just his opponents but also people like William Kristol and David Brooks.
PS: During the same 'brain explosion', Romney also made an incredibly ham-fisted & un-nuanced attempt at summarising the Palestinian issue, saying (among other things) that 'Palestinians' are "committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel".. (not some Palestinians, or most or many, so we can only assume that he means all of them, making this an inaccurate - not to mention insensitive - over-generalisation that even David G would be proud of)... With similar accuracy, he also said Tel Aviv was 'about 7 miles' from the West Bank (it's 40 miles away)...
Ha... My word verification is 'docmitt'... Do you think this is a suggestion for him? ;-p
"if you want protection go to prison. they provide food, housing, and healthcare. all you give up is your freedom." well said ike.
Got to love those Christian values q. Where's the bit in the Bible where Jesus tells the beggars and lame to 'GET A BLOODY JOB OR GO TO PRISON YOU LAZY SODS'.
Hey, you did something you rarely do. You got personal. So, I say don't talk to me about my values, ok? Especially don’t call me a hypocrite – class houses and all that.
1. I pay A LOT OF TAXES by any standard – about half of the taxes go to social programs that do not benefit me directly.
2. My wife and daughters give their time and energy generously. My wife spent the bulk of her time the last 12 years helping others for no personal gain. I enabled that via my job.
3. We give a lot of money to charity and church by any standard – several thousand annually.
4. I donate my time and energy to help others for no personal gain – easily over 100 hours annually for many years reroofing houses, installing wheel chair ramps, building fence, spending time with teens, and more.
The last 3 are done by me and my family by choice.
The first action (paying taxes) is imposed on me by a lot of people via the vote. It is enforced by the law and the threat of prison time for non-compliance. By the way, few of the people that receive these the benefits from taxes work 50+ hours a week like I have done for over 40 years now.
So, don’t talk to me about my values please. Ok?
Q
PS – The point of the Ike quote is that personal freedom is more important than free things. Of course, the beneficiaries in the USA get the free stuff while lolling around all day... I have firsthand experience repairing homes for many years in ghettos and barrios. Every, that’s right EVERY, house I’ve worked on have people living in them that are capable of doing the repairs. They just don’t do them. A typical situation is lazy men in their 20’s living with auntie or grandmamma. They sit in the house watching cable and playing xbox all day while my high school volunteers and I slave away on a crappy roof in the Texas sun.
It was meant to be a cheap shot to try and trap you in a corner struggling to play off your beliefs against each other and it wasn't meant to be personal but i can see now that it was and I apologise to you for that. Was a thoughtless, badly-worded comment.
As Mitt might say, it wasn't 'elegantly stated'? ;)
lucy,
your comment wasn't harsh, just not typical of you. i understood what you were doing...
everyday as a christian i must pick between taking care of my family or others.
frankly it would be easy for me to live with little more than the clothes on my back (maybe why i like backpacking in the widlerness), but it is not what i want for my wife and daughters... and i don't like being FORCED to turn over what i've earned so that others can have what they want (whether they can't or just won't do it themselves).
q
I have to admit after reading Q's list of his good works, I have a new appreciation of him. He can't be all bad, after all.
I mean Jesus did say to sell or give away all possessions and follow him but he also told his flock to love one another and do not kill. It seems the flock decides what to obey and what not to!
I'm sure Jesus would've condemned guns had they been invented during his lifetime! And greed! And nukes! And depleted uranium! And napalm! And torture! And rendition! And billionaires!
i think that is an accurate assessment of Jesus.
q
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