Mitt Romney painted an inaccurate portrait of the “47 percent of Americans [who] pay no income tax” when he spoke — and was secretly videotaped — at a May fund-raiser depicting almost half the country as Obama-loving “victims” who feel entitled to government handouts.
Romney’s statistic accurately approximates the percentage of US households that do not pay federal income taxes. But he went on to suggest that this 47 percent relies on government help and refuses to “take personal responsibility” — an assertion that ignores the fact that most of these households pay payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare and some are service members in combat zones.
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Romney is guilty of either an egregious lie or egregious ignorance. I'll go with the former, but either way the distain in his voice was palpable. That's what bothers me most of all.
Spot on, Who...finally a look at the "real" Mitt Romney.
Mitt says he didn't mean it. He wants everyone to know he was just lying as usual and shouldn't be taken seriously about any of this...or anything else for that matter. He says he thought it was one of those "quiet rooms" he'd mentioned previously but that somehow some of "you people" had obviously infiltrated. Mitt says not to hold him to anything he ever says but just trust him because he has big-hair plus he's rich...and why doesn't everybody have their money in Cayman Island or Swiss hideouts?
Does it not seem reasonable that he was reffering to INCOME TAX?
Of course he was. It makes the statement even dumber.
Why is it front page news that Romney said this at a private gathering? The media trolls the Romney campaign, searching for the next "gaffe" on which it can pounce. When this video came out, I sould hear the pop of the chamapgne bottles from the Globe to MSNBC, and the tears of joy they cried. Now they can bury Romney, once and for all.
The news about Obama's mishandlig of the embassy attacks across the Muslim world is relegated to the center of the paper, below the fold. Shameful, that the Globe still thinks it is in the news business.
He's running for President of the United States! Unlike those of you who insipidly troll the faux news and bleat out the wingnut talking points, there are many millions of us who not only CARE what type of person is in the oval office, but demand to know as much as we can about their behaviors under stress. Personally, I was appalled at the opening joke, obviously designed to denigrate Latinos to humor the audience-of-white-rich-guys, after which Romney stated "only a joke." Such behavior, even in jest, is insulting to citizens of the USA and is wholly dangerous when you consider the pressures of world leaders who don't always see things our way. Sure, keep blasting the Globe because it doesn't report things aligned with your opinion, but fortunately there are many more voters with intelligent views.
Because what Willard says when he thinks nobody is listening reveals his utter lack of character.
Mitt know they are untrue. He also knows that by repeating them people sufficiently the become true in people's minds.
Romney's stat's meet democratic party standards for accuracy and validity. according to the occupy movement it is actually 99 percent. Haven't seen any Globe articles on the accuracy of the 99 percent.
It must be tough to imagine what life is like for the rest of us... for those at a $50,000.00 a plate dinner.
For most of my working life I taught school for far less per year. Those deployed overseas make far less in a year. Many who receive food stamps and medicaid for their kids work more than one low wage job. And most of us raise our kids, pay for college, and take care of our parents. That some have had to occasionally take subsidized loans, live off social security, or collect unemployment, does not make us shiftless dependents incapable of responsibility.
Romney has just insulted most of America and I sincerely hope he isn't elected president.
Let’s start with your last sentence, 47% is not "most of America" no matter how you slice it. Now for the comments Romney made. Let’s give Mitt his due here, plenty of times the Obama team has said "what he meant to say" or what he was referring to", (does "you did not build this” come to mind at all?). He's mostly talking about people that use assistance as the family business. Able bodied people that don't want to work hard to make it in this world and look for the handouts. And I’ll even say that to a lesser extent he was speaking of people that can’t work. People that are fearful of any program cuts since politicians like to use them and as threats, “if you vote for person X they will cut SSI or your health coverage”. He will NEVER get their votes regardless of what he says or does so why spend money to campaign to them? He never said he didn’t care about them or would not be their president as some have mis-quoted him to have said. Now everyone is hysterically and surgically looking at the comments and somehow reading into it that he's talking about ONLY the sick, the elderly, the returning military or the physically unable to work folks. These are simply untruths forces upon you by the media. Mitt is a politician that spoke the truth, a very unusual thing, and now the media has spun it to generate hatred and lies to further a liberal agenda.
YouKnow,
The number of "able bodied people that don't want to work hard" does not even approach 47% of voters. That percentage refers to ALL those who don't pay FI tax. So subtract those who do or have worked hard: retired people, people in school, people at home with kids, people taking care of parents or spouses or disabled relatives, people at low wage jobs, and people who can't find jobs. I would say subtract people with disabilities, but many with disabilities work all their lives.
How can Mitt, a person who was so successful at business, be so bad at math?
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Romney's vision is a coutry where everyone is a hard-working taxpayer. The problem is that he would simply eliminate those who are not. He's not their president, as he said.
Why make up facts? What he said is that they will vote for Obama and not for him so why try to change their minds. That is unless you can point to the quote where he said that he will not be their president.
YouKnowImRight -- How can you even pretend to represent people who you distain. There's no mistaking his tone of voice; that's exactly what he felt. To me that's the most disturbing thing about the video. A transcript doesn't do justice to what he was implying.
jeez, he wasn't talking about not caring about those people in terms of govt assistance. He's simply talking in terms of his campaign approach - where does he see himself getting the necessary votes to put him over the top? well obviously the tradtional Repub campaign message of cutting taxes isn't going to sell to people not paying taxes. He has to try to turn 6-7% more thoughtful Independent voters his way, as he mentioned. There isn't any real news there.
So he got the numbers wrong. Sure, when you dig into it, that 47% number isn't all democrat entitlement takers. but give him a break. He was speaking off the cuff. I think he got his point across to those in the room.
'Screw 'em if they don't vote for me' is no way to be a President. Nothing in his entire 6-yr campaign to be President suggests he has any Presidential qualities. The GOP needs to elucidate a vision of how they believe government should work instead of endlessly campaigning as 'anti-government.' We saw that in Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson. We saw that in Obama in 2008, although I would have to say I am not really seeing it in him now. None of the above looks better and better, no?
Even if I speak off the cuff, to my closest friends in private, I am NOT mean natured. I never have to apologize for speaking inelegantly about certain segments of society. He may have been speaking off the cuff and to the choir BUT he was not in a private situation. He does not know how to govern his mouth. Not to mention that I pay a higher percentage of my income in taxes than he does and he could easily buy me out with his loose change. He really annoys the hell out of me.
His regressive domestic views pale in comparison with his foreign policy stance of backing a dead horse, the Jewish religious state of Israel in a Muslim middle east.
Romney's mistake was to assume a relationship between the paying of federal income taxes and the exercise of responsible citizenship. If that were true, then George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, indeed all Americans prior to 1913 (the enactment of the 16th Amendment), would be considered irresponsible. It is a blunder no conservative should make. It is a blunder no conservative would make. Starving the beast of ever expanding government by allowing people to pay less tax and keep more of their own money is a canon of conservative governance. But the Republican Party chose to nominate a rich opportunist who has not been "punching the bag in the conservative gym" and is therefor lightly equipped for the inevitable battle of ideas that must be joined in order to defeat Obama. The solution: unleash well-formed Paul Ryan, who, unlike Romney, will not lose his nerve because he has the foundation, temperament, and intellectual equipment to champion effectively the conservative vision.
Romney's spin doctors are working overtime attempting to create President-like veritas out of his campaign long series of outrageous comments. The most recent revelation of personal and campaign hubris, taped when Romney was at his most relaxed and comfortable with his wealthy peers, revealed the core of a deeply flawed human being. He treated the $50,000 a plate attendees to the truths held by his class of elitist, tax-dodging, and racist ("... it would be helpful to be Latino") supporters. In my opinion, the real revelation coming from the tape is the incredible contempt which Romney (and his peers) holds most of his fellow-Americans. To Romney the only good tax moocher is a wealthy one who can hide their wealth in foreign accounts, have low tax capitral-gains assets, or a variety of other schemes that the wealthy use to pay taxes at a lower or zero rate. He's written off almost half the population. Hopefully by now a majority of our citizens will have written off Romney and his band of money-elitists. Please let this be his last act.
The fact remains, as Joe Klein pointed out, that the Democrats are a party of special interest groups, dominated by minorities, the very rich, the very poor and public sector unions. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; that's just the way it is.
Got any backing for that? Beyond wishfull thinking, I mean.
Actually, there's a lot of truth in what you say. You left a few categories out, but if you add up just the ones you listed it sounds like a pretty good cross-section of average Americans. I'm heartened that the largest group left out is Wall Street. That sounds good too.
I just want to know how you can make $30,000-$50,000 per year and not pay income tax...
The answer to your question is in the article. Also in Reagan's speech from when he signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986: "Millions of the working poor will be dropped from the tax rolls altogether, and families will get a long-overdue break with lower rates and an almost doubled personal exemption."
Wouldn't a better question be how you can earn millions a year and only pay 13.9% income tax?
It seems to me that Romney mistakenly combined two valid talking points: one that 47% of people don't pay income taxes, which we fiscal conservatives use to defend ourselves from the left's demand that those of us who do pay taxes should pay more. The second, that there is a growing section of voters (it's not 47%) who depend on government, so we are reaching the point we were warned about early in the Republic, that democracy falters when people learn they can vote themselves largesse from the public trough, and vote only for those politicians who will protect their "entitlements" and offer them more. Somehow he blurted them out in combination; Mitt has his awkward moments, but nobody could actually believe he would put down SS and Medicare recipients and veterans.