By Robert Reich
Robert Reich's Blog
readersupportednews.org
Sept. 19, 2012
(Mitt Romney's closed door fundraiser comments show what he really thinks about half of Americans: they're moochers anddeadbeats. )
First are the distortions. Romney says 47 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes. That's literally true, except it's misleading because it includes every retiree who hasn't enough income to pay income taxes (most retirees), every poor and lower-income person who doesn't have enough income to pay, and a few multi-millionaires (perhaps like Romney himself - we don't know because he won't release his tax returns), who don't pay because of tax loopholes and tax-avoidance schemes.
Moreover, just about all working Americans, regardless of income, pay federal payroll taxes. Everyone pays state and local sales taxes. And so on. Romney also distorts reality by purposely mixing "entitlements" with "a sense of entitlement," and lumps in all recipients of Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits into his 47 percent.
Even though these programs are considered "entitlement" spending, their recipients are not undeserving; they don't consider themselves entitled to handouts. They've paid into these insurance plans through their payroll taxes.
But the the most important revelation here isn't Romney's witting distortions. It's his indignant condemnation of almost half the American electorate. A president is supposed to represent all of America, not just the 51 percent who elect him, and have a modicum of sympathy for the less fortunate among us.
Yet here is the real Mitt Romney - a fabulously wealthy financier, presumably speaking to other wealthy people (note the waiters scurrying about), with a passion we haven't before seen in him - saying it isn't his "job" to worry about Americans who he describes as "irresponsible," who fail to take care of themselves, and whose neediness is presumably their own fault.
Some of us thought Romney was without core or principle, an empty suit that would say anything to be elected. But here, evidently, is the real Mitt - a man whose core principle is clearly on display, and articulated with deep conviction: social Darwinism - survival of the richest, the hell with those who need a helping hand. In a subsequent news conference he attempted to make it sound as if he was talking here about political strategy, not social conviction.
Judge for yourself.
READER COMMENTS
+3 #2012-09-19 09:03Exactly.
This video is disturbing because it is the real Mitt. For the first time EVER (in MA that goes way back to the 90's) we get to hear the CEO/Governor talk from the heart. This is the "severe" Conservative he mentioned earlier in the campaign. This is the guy who said to an NAACP audience, that if they knew what was in his heart they would vote for him. And perhaps, to some degree he is right on that last point. There are people of all races, economic strata, and cultural identity that actually agree with Romney's view of the 47% that don't pay taxes. Stupid is not just restricted to White males that have titles like CEO and Executive Vice President, although sometimes it seems that they are trying to monopolize stupidity along with everything else.
Its that stupidity that more than anything else demonstrates why being a CEO does not automatically qualify one to be President. But on the scary side, now that the population of stupid that is not a White male business executive knows what is Romney's heart, what makes the pundit class think that they won't vote for him? I actually think there will be a lot, not a majority but probably about 25% of the persons in that 47% who, in their stupidity didn't like Mitt and were planning on sitting out because he is probably a Liberal Republican that will now vote for him. I mean, why should they stop voting against their own interests now, they have been doing it since Reagan.
+2 #2012-09-19 09:43Mitt says those 47% will never vote for him - that can be interpreted to mean those are the 47% he doesn't care about. He certainly doesn't understand the lives of those 47%.
+3 #2012-09-19 09:51Mitt doesn't care, and I don't care about Mitt. I am a proud member of the 99% and the 47%. I began working at age 20 and I worked for 50 years until age 70. During those years I paid Federal income tax each and every year, and I probably paid that tax at a higher rate most years than Mitt paid in 2010. I paid Social Security tax to the maximum each year until the maximum was raised higher than my income and I paid Medicare every year that Medicare withholding was in force. Now I don't pay Federal income tax because my wife and I are living on two very small pensions that are not indexed for inflation and Social Security which is not indexed adequately for inflation. I am part of the 47% and I will vote to re-elect President Obama because he is and will be the better President.
+2 #2012-09-19 10:05Many of those people who Romney insulted are Republican right wing nuts who vote anti-abortion and anti-gay. They are very poor, ignorant, on welfare and hate liberals.
+2 #2012-09-19 10:06Well, we finally got to see the real Mitt and it is not a pretty picture. He's selfish, greedy, a liar, thinks we have no right to a roof over our heads, food on our tables, or health insurance. It is obvious that he'd be happy to see us just die in the streets. I have never seen such a gutless, disgusting, hateful person running for office. Not Presidential material at all. Wants to just "forget about that 47%". That is not what a real president does. He refers us as "Those People", his wife refers to us as "You People". They don't relate to us. Well, "This People" is not voting for "That One", the empty suit.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 for the 100% of us.
+3 #2012-09-19 10:14Mitt Romney is proof that George W Bush wasn't the dumbest and most disgusting person to run on a major party ticket in American history.
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