Plan B Forum

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 12:25 pm**

If you make less than $50,000/yr Mitty says 'screw you'.

Calling half of the voters 'dependant' is like backing into an iceberg:

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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012 ... rnment/?hp

click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnB0NZzl ... r_embedded

WASHINGTON — During a private reception with wealthy donors this year, Mitt Romney described almost half of Americans as “people who pay no income tax” and are “dependent upon government.” Those voters, he said, would probably support President Obama because they believe they are “victims” who are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

In a brief and hastily called news conference Monday just after 10 p.m., Mr. Romney acknowledged having made the blunt political and cultural assessment, saying it was “not elegantly stated,” but he stood by the substance of the remarks, insisting that he had made similar observations in public without generating controversy.

The video of Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, was made in May, offering a rare glimpse of his personal views. Mr. Romney told reporters that he had been “speaking off the cuff in response to a question” at the fund-raiser, and said he wanted “to help all Americans — all Americans — have a bright, prosperous future.”

Democrats quickly condemned the remarks as insensitive, and Mr. Obama’s campaign accused Mr. Romney of having “disdainfully written off half the nation.”

The video surfaced as the campaign enters its final 50 days and as Mr. Romney sought to restart his campaign with new ads and new messaging, in response to calls in his campaign and from outside for him to be more specific about how his policies would fix the nation’s economy and help the middle class.

.... "
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yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:19 pm**

That was a silly thing to say. Let me correct that for him:

Mitt Romney described almost half of Americans who vote Democrat as “people who pay no income tax” and are “dependent upon government.” Those voters, he said, would probably support President Obama because they believe they are “victims” who are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:29 pm**

And your statement is just as silly and condescending.

Check out the other thread that has meandered into this topic -- in the past several years, both Sue and I have not had income tax due because of tax credits, deductions, and exemptions --- but I'm quite sure neither of us are victims, nor are we entitled to health care, food, or housing -- we work for and earn those things.

Why does no one get that there is a significant problem with poverty in this country, and instead of reviling people with little or no income, we should be working to help them move out of poverty, provide good safe educational opportunities, and, gasp, JOBS.

But no, the Republicans and those who support them would rather pretend that they too are plutocrats like Willard Mittens -- born to high income, privileged families, receiving elite education (you do know W. Mittens has TWO Harvard degrees, an MBA and *gasp* a JD), and stuffing their money in offshore accounts while plundering american companies, workers, and jobs. Talk about fantasy TV....

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:35 pm**

And your statement is just as silly and condescending.

Oh I would have said a lot sillier but thanks for the compliment

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:35 pm**

Why does no one get that there is a significant problem with poverty in this country, and instead of reviling people with little or no income, we should be working to help them move out of poverty, provide good safe educational opportunities, and, gasp, JOBS.

There's that 3 letter word again J-O-B-S that Biden talks about.

Anyway, I have no problem with hand ups. I have taken advantage of one "hand up" and one "carry over". My hand up was back in the early 1980's when I used the CETA program (I don't remember what it stands for or who set it up) which gave me my introduction to electronics and I became an electrical technician. Got a job and proceded to continue on with my education to become an EE.
The "carry over" was last year when I got layed off and used unemployment insurance until I found a new job.

All I know is that more people are on food stamps now than were on the program 4 years ago. More people are on disability now than 4 years ago (and if they really are disabled, that's fine, but I am sure there is a good amount of fraud going on too). More people are un/under employed now than 4 years ago. Maybe it's the congresses fault, but just as a president gets to claim the accolades for killin bin Laden, he also gets to take the blame for the piss poor recovery we are having.

Posted: **Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:53 pm**

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http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/t ... tment.html

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Has Shot Itself in the Head Department

The most fascinating thing about Romney is that he has fallen for a fake statistic created by the Wall Street Journal editorial page as what they call "boob bait for the bubbas"--something that they hope low-information voters will hear, get outraged about, and vote Republican. As Ezra Klein writes: "Among the Americans who paid no federal income taxes… 61 percent paid payroll taxes… 15.3 percent of their income.… Another 22 percent were elderly. So 83 percent… are either working… or they’re elderly…"

Yet Romney clearly thinks that the following are identical:

The 47% of the population who are the Democratic base.
The 47% of the population who pay no income taxes.
The 47% of the population 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… [the people whom we] will never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives…"

But Romney was not supposed to fall for this fake statistic, and make policy based on it--he was supposed to have economic advisors who would brief him, and rapidly deprogram him of fake right-wing talking points that lodged in his brain as things that really were true.

I wonder why they did not do so…

Ezra Klein: Romney’s theory of the “taker class,” and why it matters: Romney is not alone…. “We’re dismayed at the injustice…” Texas Gov. Rick Perry said…. “We’re coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers…” Rep. Paul Ryan said….

[T]his argument isn’t true….

[T]he reason so many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts…. Republicans have become outraged over the predictable effect of tax cuts they passed and are using that outrage as the justification for an agenda that further cuts taxes on the rich, and pays for it by cutting social services for the non-rich…

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yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:42 am**

Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:35 pm**

Yes, he has a propensity for putting his foot in his mouth. Kind of like the "guns and religion" Obama comment. Romney's comment is mixed up: clearly he, as well as Obama, can write off about 45-47% of the voters who will not vote for them under any circumstance. However, in Romney's case, the 45-47% are not the same 45-47% who don't pay federal income taxes during any year -- they're made up of the mix of people that reliably vote D every election.

The nearly completely different subject is that there is a real issue if that half of the people do not pay federal income taxes, or pay very little, and remain in that category year after year. They have no skin in the game, and that can create a problem ("sure, raise taxes since I don't have to pay any").

Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:13 pm**

Except that is isn't the same 47% year after year that aren't paying income tax. As this chart shows, those who don't pay income tax are concentrated among the very young and the very old:

So among those aged 25 to 60, 70+% are paying income tax. Those who are not, do not pay largely due to Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, both instituted and expanded by Republican lawmakers, and hefty deductions like that for mortgage interest. There is no conceivable way to expand the number of income tax payers without reducing or eliminating those credits and deductions, so if that is what Romney is planning to do, he should come right out and say so, rather than engaging in class warfare and continuing to flog a tax "plan" that is derived in cloud cuckoo land.

(edited to change source for chart)

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Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:16 pm**

Actually, there was nothing incorrect, nothing startling, and nothing "insensitive" about what he said.

It is a fact that Barry and the Progressives have campaigned incessantly to provide "free" government (and forced private) benefits to such diverse groups as construction workers (through Davis Bacon), the UAW, single women, the working poor (food stamp rolls are exploding), adults living at home, the elderly, illegal aliens, and so on. Consider the PR film about the fictitious "Julia" who had no need of a father or husband, because she could be provided for, from cradle to grave, by the government.

And given the fact that Democrats' whining about "tax cuts for the Rich" has resulted in a tax code by which almost half of the working population pays no Federal Income tax, why would such people ever consider voting for a Republican? The entire Federal cornucopia of provisions and benefits is essentially free to them (except, nominally for some, social security and medicare).

The MSM's jumping on this as though Mitt had insulted everyone earning less than $50k is ridiculous, and unrelated to reality.

I actually think he may have bolstered his support among the Productive Class with his remarks.

For a comparison, consider how the MSM soft-pedaled Barry's gaffe a few years ago when he mocked rural Pennsylvanians who "cling to their guns and religion." Truly, this was a much more telling error, but being "Black," he was given a pass.

Posted: **Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:33 pm**

dgs49 wrote:Actually, there was nothing incorrect, nothing startling, and nothing "insensitive" about what he said.

Actually there was something very wrong with it, because he insulted a substantial portion of his own base. A large percentage of those who do not pay income tax are the elderly, who skew Republican. Another (smaller) segment is soldiers operating in combat zones, again who skew Republican. No doubt another significant percentage are composed of religious people with many children who are single-income families because they keep their women in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, who again skew Republican. Oh yeah, let's not forget the over 4000 millionaires who did not pay a penny in income tax in 2011.

He planted his foot firmly in his mouth by insulting a large segment of his own base. The only thing he might have accomplished is to shrink the 46-47% that would have otherwise voted for him regardless, by characterizing them as good-for-nothings who refuse to take responsibility for themselves.

A soldier, risking his/her life in a war zone to protects his/her country's interests, is labelled a moocher. Wow. Just, wow.

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:24 am**

Well there is the whole hypocrisy thing:
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http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... oters.html

Frankel: Mitt Romney Rejects His Natural Voters

Jeff Frankel:

Mitt Romney Rejects His Natural Voters, by Jeff Frankel, Commentary, Project Syndicate: ...Mitt Romney’s characterization of 47% of the American electorate as “victims” who are “dependent on government” and refuse to take “personal responsibility” for their lives ... appears to have categorized a large segment of his party’s own voters as supporters of President Barack Obama. ...

The unspoken truth is that, compared to “blue-staters,” those who live in red states exhibit less responsibility, on average, in their personal behavior: they are less physically fit, less careful in their sexual behavior, more prone to inflict harm on themselves and others through smoking and drinking, and more likely to receive federal subsidies.

Statistical analysis shows that ... the ... average score of the five “reddest” states ... is worse on each of six measures of irresponsibility than the average score of the five “bluest”...: more obesity, smoking, chlamydia, teenage pregnancy, drunk-driving fatalities, and firearms assaults. In the latter three measures, the “reckless” share of the population is almost twice as high among the reddest states as it is among the bluest.

The states that score worst on these measures are also the states whose congressional representatives voted against Obama’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2010, though many of these unhealthy people free-ride on their fellow citizens...

Policy wonks have long known that one gets similar results when looking at which states receive more federal subsidies: Despite all the rhetoric about “getting the government off our backs,” the red states receive the most federal transfers... Democratic-leaning states ... are net contributors to the federal budget, and thus subsidize everyone else. Those who claim to be most fiscally conservative in fact tend to feed most voraciously at the public trough.

Blue-state residents, who tend to be more educated and have higher incomes than residents of red states, have refrained from suggesting that their red-states compatriots exhibit behavior that falls short of the conservative rhetoric of personal responsibility. It would be unseemly and perhaps “elitist” to point fingers at fellow Americans and imply that they are promiscuous, fat, gluttonous, lazy, uneducated, or that they are more prone to divorce, drunkeness, and gun-related deaths. ...

What about the millions of red-state Americans who have been preaching hard work, family values, self-reliance, and small government, while practicing the opposite? Surely this is the more objectionable stance. Yet, for red-state politicians, this hypocrisy has been a winning electoral strategy for three decades.

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Stupid is as stupid does. And Republican states are bone-stupid.

yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:51 am**

Scooter wrote:Oh yeah, let's not forget the over 4000 millionaires who did not pay a penny in income tax in 2011.

There were 7,000 millionaires who paid no income taxes last year. And when you start counting at $100k, there were 491,000 Americans who didn't pay income taxes last year.

Truly they must be lazy and dependent upon the government to support themselves.

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:18 am**

Grim Reaper wrote:
Scooter wrote:Oh yeah, let's not forget the over 4000 millionaires who did not pay a penny in income tax in 2011.
There were 7,000 millionaires who paid no income taxes last year. And when you start counting at $100k, there were 491,000 Americans who didn't pay income taxes last year.

Truly they must be lazy and dependent upon the government to support themselves.

Or they know how stupid you are and know they can count on it indefinitely.

yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:22 am**

Another way Romney has alienated his base with his comments:

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:06 am**

I somehow doubt whether the Romney voters among the 47% he referred to are intelligent self-aware enough to recognize themselves in his comments. They'll probably agree with him wholeheartedly, because they'll be sure he's referring to somebody else.

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:03 pm**

Don't be so sure:

Nearly six in ten, or 59 percent, in the poll said they felt Romney unfairly dismissed almost half of Americans as victims in his remarks made to donors in May at a private event at a luxury home in Florida.

Romney targeted 47 percent of voters in his comments, but a large majority in the poll - 67 percent - said they identified more with the people he was talking about than with the wealthy donors he was addressing.

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:04 pm**

There were 7,000 millionaires who paid no income taxes last year. And when you start counting at $100k, there were 491,000 Americans who didn't pay income taxes last year.

Source: Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center Microsimulation Model.

In other words, rather than looking at actual numbers, a liberal think tank hires some number crunchers to create a model that shows that millionaires don't pay taxes. Don't worry, its just the

preliminary results

.

If you look at actual numbers, the number was 1,500 who paid no taxes in the report that was issued at the same time as the liberal institution created its report. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/1500-mil ... d=14242254 But let's not quibble about the inaccuracy of the model, let's look at the reason a few high income earners don't pay taxes so that we can actually understand what is going on, instead of mindlessly repeating some liberal talking point.

Actually, they were probably donating to charity, investing in local and state government bonds and making most of their money overseas.

Most of the millionaires who did not pay income tax to the IRS probably still had to hand over a chunk of their change, just not to the U.S. government, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

So the liberal think tank explains, for anyone who wants the real information, that this is a non-story. Some very small percentage of wealthy Americans make most of their money in a foreign country, pay taxes in that country and receive a credit off of their U.S. taxes for the taxes they paid in the foreign country (to avoid double taxation). As a parallel, many foreigners work in the U.S., pay taxes here on their U.S. income and receive a credit on their home country taxes. It balances out, and is a basic concept of tax fairness.

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:22 pm**

so that we can actually understand what is going on, instead of mindlessly repeating some liberal talking point.

Oh come on Long Run, what fun would that be?

Posted: **Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:30 pm**

Mitt Romney, in the wake of his "47%" comments, told Fox News that government redistribution of wealth is an "entirely foreign concept" to Americans.

He repeated the point today: "I know there are some who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others then we'll all be better off. It's known as redistribution. It's never been a characteristic of America."

I am not sure whether Mr Romney means that such ideas come from abroad or just that redistribution is alien to American values.

But he is on to something.

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