Romney: Obama voters don't pay income taxes

[DMX7]

XnB0NZzl5HA

[Reck]

Obama, welcome to 4 more years.

Romney knew he completely loss when he put Clint on the stage. That was really the killing blow.

[Spurminator]

I think you've misrepresented the statement in your thread title. He's not saying that Obama voters don't pay income taxes. He's saying people who don't pay income taxes only vote Democrat. Which is almost worse.

It's just baffling. How do you serve as a Republican in government for 20 years and think there are no Republicans in the bottom income tax bracket?

[Th'Pusher]

I think you've misrepresented the statement in your thread title. He's not saying that Obama voters don't pay income taxes. He's saying people who don't pay income taxes only vote Democrat. Which is almost worse.

It's just baffling. How do you serve as a Republican in government for 20 years and think there are no Republicans in the bottom income tax bracket?

He knows it's bullshit. He's just trying to fire up the monied class that donate to his campaign. I'd bet that the 47% that don't pay taxes and vote is evenly split between republicans and democrats when you take into account the elderly, the rednecks and the people who are just too stupid to understand they're part of the 47%. Keep your government hands off my Medicaid!

[hitmanyr2k]

Sounds like a very frustrated candidate that's throwing a little tantrum because he's not getting what he thinks he's entitled to. The guy has been running for president for two elections now so it has to be a little frustrating to him that he's not getting over the hump. It's his own fault really. Never mind that he has the personality of a piece of driftwood but he's been Mr. Vague on everything. It seems like he thought he could breeze through this election for some reason.

And the last thing he should ever mention is taxes :lol That argument was finally starting to die down. Now that he's bringing it up again about Obama supporters not paying taxes it opens the door for critics to say "let's see yours" once again.

[SnakeBoy]

So what voters will Romney lose over this statement?

[Jacob1983]

The White House

[Th'Pusher]

So what voters will Romney lose over this statement?

It's possible he'll lose some educated independents. The arithmetic, like his ridiculous budget, just does't add up. If Obama has 47% of the electorate locked up (we all know a great majority of them don't vote), he'd win in a mother-fucking landslide because we all know more educated people vote for him, unions, teachers, etc all of whom pay taxes...Romney is a straight up moron. Why you have such a hard on for him is beyond me.

[SnakeBoy]

Why you have such a hard on for him is beyond me.

I don't. I've never been a big fan but the alternative is 4 more years of guaranteed ineptitude.

[SnakeBoy]

It's possible he'll lose some educated independents.

I think you're making the same mistake Romney is making in believing this race comes down to independents when it's all about turning out the base.

[Th'Pusher]

I don't. I've never been a big fan but the alternative is 4 more years of guaranteed ineptitude.

And based on the campaign Romney has run, what is it that makes you think he will be any less inept. I mean this guy is bumbling fool. The funny thing is this is the best candidate the GOP had to run.

[scott]

9/17. The day Mitt decided he really didn't want to be president anymore.

Never forget.

[scott]

He knows it's bullshit. He's just trying to fire up the monied class that donate to his campaign. I'd bet that the 47% that don't pay taxes and vote is evenly split between republicans and democrats when you take into account the elderly, the rednecks and the people who are just too stupid to understand they're part of the 47%. Keep your government hands off my Medicaid!

A lot of that 47% also includes folks who make a lot of money.

Fatal blunder.

[Th'Pusher]

I think you're making the same mistake Romney is making in believing this race comes down to independents when it's all about turning out the base.

A strategy for turning out the base is too narrow for Romney. He has to win over independent/swing voters.

[scott]

Romney camp better hope Biden comes out and says he and Obama like to tag team drunk girls, or something equally stupid. Only chance they have now.

[Latarian Milton]

battle done before it ever began just like the 12' NBA finals imho, dude did act like a clown in multiple interviews which have cemented his loss, but whos gonna vote for a mormon anyway?

[DMX7]

lol, Romney just called a press conference to address his idiocy.

"I didn't speak eloquently..." lolz

[DMX7]

I switched over to Fox News where they showed the press conference and the Fox News crew didn't even know which video he was talking about. That's how out of touch those dummies are.

[ChumpDumper]

"My job is not to worry about those people."

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-3/tee-ball.jpg
Try not to fuck this one up, Barry.

[AFBlue]

Romney camp better hope Biden comes out and says he and Obama like to tag team drunk girls, or something equally stupid. Only chance they have now.


"My job is not to worry about those people."

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-3/tee-ball.jpg
Try not to fuck this one up, Barry.

:lmao

[AFBlue]

.

[Clipper Nation]

Willard's an Obama voter now?

[Clipper Nation]

I don't. I've never been a big fan but the alternative is 4 more years of guaranteed ineptitude.
No, it's 4 more years of gridlock that reduces the amount of liberty destruction, as opposed to 8 years of a sociopath liar as POTUS with a blank check to start a ton of wars and ruin our currency...

[TeyshaBlue]

Romney camp better hope Biden comes out and says he and Obama like to tag team drunk girls, or something equally stupid. Only chance they have now.

Better than zero chance tbh.

[Winehole23]

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/section;jsessionid=D1CE970E2CCD514391BD0EB5A631D71 4?s=28)
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Thurston Howell Romney



By DAVID BROOKS

Published: September 18, 2012




In 1980, about 30 percent of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today, as Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out, about 49 percent do.


In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large. Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years. This spending surge, Eberstadt notes, has increased faster under Republican administrations than Democratic ones.



There are sensible conclusions to be drawn from these facts. You could say that the entitlement state is growing at an unsustainable rate and will bankrupt the country. You could also say that America is spending way too much on health care for the elderly and way too little on young families and investments in the future.



But these are not the sensible arguments that Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser earlier this year. Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers. Forty-seven percent of the country, he said, are people "who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it."


This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn't know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?


It suggests that Romney doesn't know much about the culture of America.


Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.


It says that Romney doesn't know much about the political culture. Americans haven't become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.




The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.


Romney's comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan's second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can't help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.


The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view - from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There's no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn't have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.


The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation. The formula he sketches is this: People who are forced to make it on their own have drive. People who receive benefits have dependency.


But, of course, no middle-class parent acts as if this is true. Middle-class parents don't deprive their children of benefits so they can learn to struggle on their own. They shower benefits on their children to give them more opportunities - so they can play travel sports, go on foreign trips and develop more skills.


People are motivated when they feel competent. They are motivated when they have more opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour through the world's poorest regions makes clear.



Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I'd put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category. But, as a description of America today, Romney's comment is a country-club fantasy. It's what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.



Personally, I think he's a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not - some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He's running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.xml

[Winehole23]

highlighted for SnakeBoy:


The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

[Winehole23]

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/nonpayers.banner.taxfound.jpg

[SnakeBoy]

highlighted for SnakeBoy:

Why for me?

Do you think those people will now not vote for Romney because of his comments?

[mercos]

The sad thing is, I'm willing to bet a majority of that 47% are Republicans, and they will still vote for Romney.

[TDMVPDPOY]

lol why he snitching, when he does the same thing?

[Wild Cobra]

So what voters will Romney lose over this statement?

None.

He's spot on.

Somewhere between 47% to 48% have no federal tax liability, and will vote for all tax increases because they are not affected. In fact, any time these tax increases are said to aid them in any way...

They are bought.

They are just whores for the democrats.

[Wild Cobra]

A lot of that 47% also includes folks who make a lot of money.

Fatal blunder.
Billshit. It's only going to piss off people who will not vote for him anyway. He's preaching to the choir.

I agree some wealthy don't pay taxes for one reason or another, but there is an IRS statistic that this number comes from. 47%+ of income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out.

[mavs>spurs]

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.


Ummm are you referring to the same men who paid into those very programs for 50 years? Why the fuck shouldn't they receive it now that it's their turn?

[boutons_deux]

I don't. I've never been a big fan but the alternative is 4 more years of guaranteed ineptitude.

list the demonizing ineptitudes of Obama's first 4 years.

[boutons_deux]

Billshit. It's only going to piss off people who will not vote for him anyway. He's preaching to the choir.

I agree some wealthy don't pay taxes for one reason or another, but there is an IRS statistic that this number comes from. 47%+ of income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out.

The evasive, secretive Gecko, very carefully, said he paid 13% in taxes, NOT income taxes. And I bet he used the amnesty on his Swiss bank accounts. He's a felony tax evader, until he proves otherwise. But he criminalizes the poor like every excellent 1%er.

Gecko says he paid all the taxes he was required to pay. Well, those 47% did the same. It's OK for Gecko, but not OK for the 47%.

WC's flat tax of 25% would apply to mininum wagers.

[Wild Cobra]

The evasive, secretive Gecko, very carefully, said he paid 13% in taxes, NOT income taxes.
He said he paid a minimum of 13%, and I think he was referring to federal income tax. Besides, who cares but jealous whinetards?

And I bet he used the amnesty on his Swiss bank accounts.
Who cares? It's stupid not to diversify.

He's a felony tax evader, until he proves otherwise. But he criminalizes the poor like every excellent 1%er.

How many times a day do you "Hail Hitler?"


Gecko says he paid all the taxes he was required to pay. Well, those 47% did the same. It's OK for Gecko, but not OK for the 47%.

I agree. Our tax system is fucked.


WC's flat tax of 25% would apply to mininum wagers.

Bullshit.

Link...

[boutons_deux]

Romney Stands By Controversial Comments, Claims He Says The Same Thing In Public

At a hastily arranged press conference on Monday night, Romney stood by controversial comments he made at a private fundraiser in May, saying that his remarks were “not elegantly stated” and spoken “off the cuff.” “This is something I talk about a good deal in rallies and speeches and so forth,” Romney claimed, adding “The president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes.”

In May, Romney told wealth donors that “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… [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”

The former Massachusetts governor took just three questions, walking away when asked if his claims that almost half of Americans see themselves as “victims” represent his “core convictions” and what he believes. From reporter Holly Bailey, who was on the scene:

Romney made the original comments at the “Boca Raton home of private-equity executive Marc Leder on May 17.” Leder, is the co-CEO of the private equity firm Sun Capital, which has a reputation for bankrupting companies in the pursuit of profit. “Since 2008, some 25 of its companies — roughly one of every five it owns — have filed for bankruptcy.” Not only that, but the company was accused by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) just a few months ago of intentionally pushing a company into bankruptcy in order to avoid paying workers’ pensions.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/09/17/863661/breaking-romney-stands-by-controversial-commments-this-is-the-same-message-i-give-in-public/

[boutons_deux]

Bullshit.

Link...

So your infamous flat tax ain't so flat after all? :lol

[Capt Bringdown]

Just saw on twitter that the Romney campaign is so dead the Mormons just baptized it.

[Wild Cobra]

So your infamous flat tax ain't so flat after all? :lol

I believe I have mentioned 17%.

[boutons_deux]

So you want every minimum wager to pay 17% income tax + 6.5% SS?

And still pay the rent and food and gas?

While the 1% pays 15% on capital gains, with their SS capped? :lol

[Wild Cobra]

I don't know what the best system is. I would at this point prefer to do away with SS, medicare, and all income type taxation. Replace it with a national sales tax of about 16% on everything not considered an essential. Poor people would then pay no taxes if they could only buy the essential. I would entertain a sales luxury tax of the more uncommon items like sports cars, boats, airplanes, etc. though I don't think it's necessary.

The 17% number would be a flat tax if you did an income style tax with say a $30,000 deductible.

[Koolaid_Man]

Billshit. It's only going to piss off people who will not vote for him anyway. He's preaching to the choir.

I agree some wealthy don't pay taxes for one reason or another, but there is an IRS statistic that this number comes from. 47%+ of income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out.

wow..you guys really don't know how to win elections...:lol remember Bush won election as a result of hanging chads down in Florida...other than that if Obama wins re-election you guys probably won't even sniff the white house again for at least 24 yrs...

2012 - Obama likely gets 2 terms = 8 yrs
2016 - Next the first white woman...No one will beat Hillary. She will likely get 2 terms as well
2024 - Then we're looking at the first Mexican Man in Julian Castro. Mexicans will push him over the top and he'll likely get 2 terms especially with whites becoming the minority in 2020.
2032 - First Black woman president. Michelle Obama will likely serve one term.

2036 is the first chance a Repub will have to legitimately take the WH back.

I know it sucks to look at that Math but it's true..Your party has pretty much had their run of racism hicks controlling the country...good riddance :toast

[Wild Cobra]

wow..you guys really don't know how to win elections...:lol remember Bush won election as a result of hanging chads down in Florida...

Bullshit.

Someone tried to take the Florida electoral votes away from Bush. The Supreme Court ruling was that Florida had to follow it's election laws. It had nothing to do with chads. Demonrats were trying to circumvent the Florida law to throw the election.

[Koolaid_Man]

Bullshit.

Someone tried to take the Florida electoral votes away from Bush. The Supreme Court ruling was that Florida had to follow it's election laws. It had nothing to do with chads. Demonrats were trying to circumvent the Florida law to throw the election.


I donated 2k to Obama's re-election campaign..plus I'm involved in PAC work. I've sent money to an "Acorn like" club in Florida and Iowa to help Obama pull those States out..I'm doing all I can to help educate seniors and encourage the get out and vote message..We have to win this one it's crucial for the positive / progressive direction of the country.

We cannot let Repubs take this country back...back to the 1950's...walk with me now Wild Cobra or your voice and message will be irrelevant for at least 25yrs

[Wild Cobra]

So you are helping to destroy this nation.

[Clipper Nation]

2012 - Obama likely gets 2 terms = 8 yrs
2016 - Ron Paul
2024 - Tom Davis
2032 - Justin Amash

fify

Nice collectivism, btw.... very "positive and progressive" of you, Extra Stout... :lol

[mountainballer]

so Romney votes for Obama?

some things I will never really understand about you Americans.

[boutons_deux]

Bullshit.

Someone tried to take the Florida electoral votes away from Bush. The Supreme Court ruling was that Florida had to follow it's election laws. It had nothing to do with chads. Demonrats were trying to circumvent the Florida law to throw the election.

You Lie

[Wild Cobra]

You Lie
Read the Supreme Court ruling please.

[boutons_deux]

the JINO SCOTUS elected dubya. Was more "interested" in imposing state law than in getting an accurate count that had a chance of beating JINO's candidate. SCOTUS was badly, vehemently split, and the REPUG JINOs won.

[Wild Cobra]

the JINO SCOTUS elected dubya. Was more "interested" in imposing state law than in getting an accurate count that had a chance of beating JINO's candidate. SCOTUS was badly, vehemently split, and the REPUG JINOs won.

So... you are suggesting that the Florida election law needed to be violated to elect Gore?

[boutons_deux]

no

[Wild Cobra]

no
But that is the problem Florida election law was violated. The recount method was not only bogus, but went for too long a time.

[boutons_deux]

GFY

With gecko's campaingn bitterly divided internally,

shifting strategies from week to week (or is it "weak to weak"? :lol ),

Repug campaign financers,

Repug mucky mucks wringing their sweaty hands,

gecko comes up with his BEST STRATEGY YET!

In New Campaign Strategy, Romney to Have Mouth Wired Shut Until November

In what his campaign described today as a bold strategy to insure victory in the Presidential contest, Republican nominee Mitt Romney will undergo a procedure to have his mouth wired shut until Tuesday, November 6th.

The decision reportedly was made in response to the release earlier in the day of rare video footage showing Mr. Romney saying what he really thinks.

In the video, Mr. Romney blasts the American people for being “insanely obsessed with food, clothing, and shelter,” and asserts that many of them are “too lazy to hide their money overseas.”

At another point in the video, Mr. Romney refers to his own hardscrabble childhood: “I was never handed anything in life. If I wanted to cut a gay kid’s hair off, I had to pin him to the ground myself.”

Romney campaign aides were upbeat about the mouth-wiring procedure today, with some saying they wished they had thought of it months ago.

When asked about the procedure at a campaign stop in Ohio, Mr. Romney said, “Mmmnff ffnn mmfff nnnnnff.”


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/09/in-new-campaign-strategy-romney-to-have-mouth-wired-shut-until-november.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2822%29

[coyotes_geek]

Thanks to the 2009 bill that removed income caps on who could do a roth ira conversion, I'm sure a good chunk of those Romney supporters will find themselves not paying any income taxes in retirement and they'll have Obama to thank for it.

[RandomGuy]

I think you've misrepresented the statement in your thread title. He's not saying that Obama voters don't pay income taxes. He's saying people who don't pay income taxes only vote Democrat. Which is almost worse.

It's just baffling. How do you serve as a Republican in government for 20 years and think there are no Republicans in the bottom income tax bracket?

Even worse.
To paraphrase:

If you are poor, you are lazy.

[Winehole23]

Why for me?

Do you think those people will now not vote for Romney because of his comments?it's possible some of them could get turned off and stay home. particularly if Romney continues his losing trajectory.

[RandomGuy]

None.

He's spot on.

Somewhere between 47% to 48% have no federal tax liability, and will vote for all tax increases because they are not affected. In fact, any time these tax increases are said to aid them in any way...

They are bought.

They are just whores for the democrats.

You do realize that medicare and social security taxes are "federal tax liabilities", right?

[elbamba]

it's possible some of them could get turned off and stay home. particularly if Romney continues his losing trajectory.

Its possible but not likely. Too much of the base cannot stand Obama and will turn out just to vote against him. It was a stupid thing to say and unlike some of the Romney voters on this site I think it was factually wrong. Many poor people vote republican for social reasons, not economic reasons. Romney would have been right to say there is 40-45% of the population that is going to vote for Obama no matter what. Romney can't focus on those people because he knows he will never win them over. They are similar to the 40-45% of the population who will vote for Romney. The key is winning over at least 50% of the remaining that last 10-20%.

If he had said that or something similar to that, he would have a smaller headach right now.

[elbamba]

If he wanted to get his jabs in he could have used a word like "some" or even "many" within that 40-45% are there because they depend on government. No one would get too worked up about that, especially if he then said that the remaining 10-20% are made up of all different demographics and backgrounds but keep an open mind and are unhappy with the past 4 years. All that would have been fine and true.

[ChumpDumper]

So, class warfare is actually OK to Team Red.

Thanks for confirming.

[Edward]

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/nonpayers.banner.taxfound.jpg
Well, this takes a giant dump on what Romney said.

[scott]

Billshit. It's only going to piss off people who will not vote for him anyway. He's preaching to the choir.

I agree some wealthy don't pay taxes for one reason or another, but there is an IRS statistic that this number comes from. 47%+ of income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out.

There is a stat, maybe you should look it up.

To paraphrase what you just said:




Bullshit.

What you said is correct.

I'll change the subject

[DMX7]

Well, this takes a giant dump on what Romney said.

Yeah, that's basically his base.

[clambake]

one of these guys is going to win, in spite of everything.

[Winehole23]

Its possible but not likely. Too much of the base cannot stand Obama and will turn out just to vote against him. It was a stupid thing to say and unlike some of the Romney voters on this site I think it was factually wrong. Many poor people vote republican for social reasons, not economic reasons. Romney would have been right to say there is 40-45% of the population that is going to vote for Obama no matter what. Romney can't focus on those people because he knows he will never win them over. They are similar to the 40-45% of the population who will vote for Romney. The key is winning over at least 50% of the remaining that last 10-20%.

If he had said that or something similar to that, he would have a smaller headach right now.Hatred for Obama is undeniably strong, but characterizing people who pay no income taxes as a class of parasites and moochers was monumentally stupid. also, as you pointed out, factually incorrect.

Message discipline seems not to be there for Romney. He did much better in the primaries, tbh.

[elbamba]

So, class warfare is actually OK to Team Red.

Thanks for confirming.

It seems like fair game for both parties. Would you disagree?

[CosmicCowboy]

Hatred for Obama is undeniably strong, but characterizing people who pay no income taxes as a class of parasites and moochers was monumentally stupid. also, as you pointed out, factually incorrect.

Message discipline seems not to be there for Romney. He did much better in the primaries, tbh.

There is a lot of stupid factually incorrect bullshit going down on both sides.

This campaign silly season seems even worse than usual.

[ChumpDumper]

It seems like fair game for both parties. Would you disagree?Team Red was against it before they were for it.

[DMX7]

It seems like fair game for both parties. Would you disagree?

Is the 3% proposed tax hike for households earning greater than $250K the class warfare you're referring to?

So far, only one campaign has actually come out and said that approximately half the country is made up of free-loading bums and that half is voting for Obama.

[Winehole23]

There is a lot of stupid factually incorrect bullshit going down on both sides.sure, but you've been flogging this meme to death the past couple of years, even did so upstream.

(better check your boots; you're tracking something around with you)

[coyotes_geek]

Message discipline seems not to be there for Romney. He did much better in the primaries, tbh.

Was he really better in the primaries, or did he just look better because he was running against the likes of Perry, Santorum & Bachman?

[boutons_deux]

Gecko says his "job" (I thought he said he was unemployed? :lol ) is not to work about that 47% (in all those red states, because they will stupidly vote Repug no matter much Repug policies screw them :lol OVER AND OVER AND OVER )

[Winehole23]

good question, CG. to me it seems he was better in the primaries at giving very little away and avoiding dumb comments. now it seems like he's falling over his own feet and flailing a bit.

[elbamba]

Is the 3% proposed tax hike for households earning greater than $250K the class warfare you're referring to?

So far, only one campaign has actually come out and said that approximately half the country is made up of free-loading bums and that half is voting for Obama.


I am referring to the party that tells me that even though I write out checks with two to three digits in front of a comma I don't seem to be paying my fair share. I take that to mean class warfare. Especially when a small percentage of the population covers the federal income tax.

I am all in favor of paying more in taxes if someone would get serious about paying down the deficit. Right now I see no difference between red team and blue team. They both offer gimmicks and are afraid to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done because doing so, or telling the truth makes them unelectable.

The way I look at it, until that party/politician comes along, I will vote for the person that promises to take the least of my money so that I can pass it down to my kids, whose back we are weighing down with our current spending.

[elbamba]

Team Red was against it before they were for it.

I am glad we both agree.

[elbamba]

good question, CG. to me it seems he was better in the primaries at giving very little away and avoiding dumb comments. now it seems like he's falling over his own feet and flailing a bit.

I think his opponents made so many dumb comments that it kind of allowed him to sit back and be the inevitable candidate. He made his share of gaffs like I like to fire people, which was taken out of context, but was a gaff nonetheless.

[DMX7]

I am referring to the party that tells me that even though I write out checks with two to three digits in front of a comma I don't seem to be paying my fair share. I take that to mean class warfare. Especially when a small percentage of the population covers the federal income tax.

You're paying $100,000+ in federal income taxes?

[boutons_deux]

Romney Surrogate: 47% Remark Was Intended For ‘Business People’

On Tuesday morning, former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) was one of the few Mitt Romney surrogates to discuss the recently uncovered video showing the former Massachusetts governor referring to 47 percent of Americans as “victims” and “dependent upon government.”

During an appearance on MSNBC, Ehrlich explained that the inarticulate comments as remarks “to a bunch of business people about tax cuts because these folks care about tax cuts.” “When you’re human, you make comments,” he explained. “When you’re off the record, at a private event, you are less careful than when you are at a public event.” He went on to say that the statements are “unimportant” to “what really matters to people.”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/18/865201/romney-surrogate-47-remark-were-intended-for-business-people/

This is how the 1% and UCA talk among themselves, eg, "everybody but us are Randian moochers to be criminalized for not being .... us!" :lol

“When you’re human, you make comments” :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

I am referring to the party that tells me that even though I write out checks with two to three digits in front of a comma I don't seem to be paying my fair share.

:wow

http://www.gifcrap.com/d/2024-1/Wayne_s+World+-+We_re+not+worthy.gif

[boutons_deux]

I am all in favor of paying more in taxes if someone would get serious about paying down the deficit. Right now I see no difference between red team and blue team. They both offer gimmicks and are afraid to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done because doing so, or telling the truth makes them unelectable.

The way I look at it, until that party/politician comes along, I will vote for the person that promises to take the least of my money so that I can pass it down to my kids, whose back we are weighing down with our current spending.

The entire philosophy of the (Norquist-pledging) Repugs is to spend like hell, cut taxes, run up the deficit, then reduce govt until it's drownable in bathtub.

That strategy is blatant as hell. You expect Repugs to be "serious" about the deficit, like Ryan's twice-Repug-approved plan to increase the deficit by $5T+ in 10 years?

btw, a "small percentage" of population accounts for almost 50% of the total national income and wealth, too. Are we talking about the same percentage? :lol

[Winehole23]

It's worth recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don't pay income taxes are Romney supporters—especially of course seniors (who might well "believe they are entitled to heath care," a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/note-romney-s-arrogant-and-stupid-remarks_652548.html

[RandomGuy]

I am all in favor of paying more in taxes if someone would get serious about paying down the deficit. Right now I see no difference between red team and blue team. They both offer gimmicks and are afraid to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done because doing so, or telling the truth makes them unelectable.

There is a big, huge screaming difference between the red and blue teams at this point.

The red team has signed, almost to a person, pledges to never, ever raise taxes, and have set up watchdog groups to enforce that pledge and discipline.

Those that comprimise on that, have been summarily politically executed for not being ideologically pure enough.

The Republican revolution is eating its children, and figuratively executing anyone who is not deemed "conservative" enough, just like real revolutions.

Most Democrats have some room to maneuver, and politically have stated some willingness to cut entitlements, *IF* taxes are raised at the other end to help meet in the middle.

Republicans, won't comprimise.

This was THE single reason that the US had its credit downgraded by Moody's. The tea party led rebellion and gridlock.

If you like, I would be more than willing to support each of those assertions. I read Moody's statement, I have watched conservatives get beaten in primaries by tea party insurgents, and seen the voting records and statements of the tea party representatives elected in 2010.

[Winehole23]

http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2017744d1d424970d-550wi (http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2017744d1d424970d-popup)

[Winehole23]

so, Romney just gave the finger to millions of voters over 60. not smart.

[DMX7]

so, Romney just gave the finger to millions of voters over 60. not smart.

Combine that with the other graphic, lol.

[Winehole23]

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/283265

[boutons_deux]

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/283265

" if they vote for big government now they will have to pay the bill later"

If they voted for ST Ronnie or dubya, they got much bigger govt and $Ts more in debt, but that's ok, those two clowns were Repugs.

[Jamtas#2]

Billshit. It's only going to piss off people who will not vote for him anyway. He's preaching to the choir.

I agree some wealthy don't pay taxes for one reason or another, but there is an IRS statistic that this number comes from. 47%+ of income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out.

horrible move, imo. the only people who aren't negatively affected are die hard red pom poms who will vote for him no matter what.
This hurts with independents. Republicans have now done what the Dems did with Kerry - manage to F up and election where they had president on the fence and could easily finish him off... just threw the worst candidate out there.

That pic by Chump is right on - Obama just has to not say/do anything controversial (and keep short leash on Biden) and this is his election to lose. T-ball swing.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao at the blue team exuberant optimism in here.

This is only an election deal breaker in your minds.

[boutons_deux]

"income tax filers pay no federal income tax, and many of them get more money back than they had taken out."

some mega-corps also pay no income tax, and some get $Bs in (taxpayers') cash back. When do you complain and whine about that?

If the rich game the tax system, you're silent. If the poor pay no taxes, you want to screw them hard.

[Winehole23]

:lmao at the blue team exuberant optimism in here. you don't seem to have noticed the Red team pessimism. Brooks, Kristol, and Ponnuru are hardly blue team cheerleaders.

[CosmicCowboy]

you don't seem to have noticed the Red team pessimism. Brooks, Kristol, and Ponnuru are hardly blue team cheerleaders.

Oh, no doubt it was stupid. Just don't think it's a deal breaker. The shit is hitting the fan with the economy and the Middle East/Africa/Afghanistan and this will be forgotten by election day.

[boutons_deux]

Sticking To Their Guns: Ryan Echoes Romney’s ‘Dependency’ Comments

RYAN: And so, this is what Mitt and I are talking about when we’re worried about more and more people becoming net dependent upon the government than upon themselves. Because by promoting more dependency, but not having jobs and economic growth, people miss their potential. We should not be measuring the progress of our social programs, of programs like food stamps based up on how many people receive them…. We don’t want a safety net that encourages more dependency because there is no economic growth behind it.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/18/866291/sticking-to-their-guns-ryan-echoes-romneys-dependency-comments/

Gecko and Ryan trashing the moochers, when Ms of those moochers need (good) jobs.

Why aren't "job creators" Gecko and Ryan talking about how they will create jobs for the moochers?

[Spurminator]

I don't disagree with Ryan's statement at all, as stated. But it's not what Romney said. And I'm pretty sure we have very different opinions on what constitutes "promoting dependency."

[Winehole23]

Oh, no doubt it was stupid. Just don't think it's a deal breaker. The shit is hitting the fan with the economy and the Middle East/Africa/Afghanistan and this will be forgotten by election day.Could cut either way. Mitt Romney isn't showing much aptitude for either the economy or foreign policy.

[djohn2oo8]

Team red better hope Romney didn't say anything else



Mother Jones, which obtained video of Mitt Romney's remarks about the "47 percent" at a Boca Raton fundraiser, plans to release the full video later today, the magazine's co-editor Clara Jeffrey told POLITICO.

"We have the whole tape, which we're releasing later today," Jeffrey said. She said they would aim to release the tape "around mid-afternoon

[Winehole23]

and on the latter, he is notably weak

[MannyIsGod]

so, Romney just gave the finger to millions of voters over 60. not smart.

Its only not smart if they realize he's talking about them.

[Winehole23]

true. the obliviousness of political partisans to fairly plain realities is not to be under-estimated.

[Winehole23]

As Dave Weigel reported (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/09/mitt_romney_religious_right_christian_conservative s_are_worried_that_the_gop_chose_the_wrong_person_ to_run_against_barack_obama_.2.html) Friday, the operating theory of much of the conservative media is that increases in food stamps are functioning as bribes to get poor people to vote for Obama. “We have three million more off the unemployment rolls and on the disability rolls, and they all vote,” Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners. ” The evangelical activist Gary Bauer told Weigel, “There’s a lot of people out now around America who depend on checks from their fellow taxpayers being in the mailbox every day. They will turn out in massive numbers.”

Here’s the problem: poor people actually don’t vote that often. According to a CNN exit poll (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/assets_c/2010/07/income_support_table-thumb-454x121-22902.png) in 2008, those making less than $15,000 a year made up 13 percent of the population but just 6 percent of voters, while those making more than $200,000 a year made up just 3.8 percent of the population but fully 6 percent of voters:


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/income_support_table.png


If all income groups had voted evenly, Obama would have beaten McCain 55.2 percent to 42.7 percent, a net gain of 5.3 points relative to what actually happened. So no, poor government program beneficiaries don’t “all vote” or turn out in “massive numbers”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/rush-limbaugh-says-welfare-recipients-turn-out-to-vote-in-force-they-really-dont/

[Winehole23]

What’s more, the trends with voting by class don’t seem to match up with the generosity of government programs. Here, according to NonprofitVOTE (http://www.nonprofitvote.org/), is how voter turnout between income groups changed from 1998 to 2010:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/income_turnout_time.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/income_turnout_time.jpg)Source: NonprofitVOTE



If the Bauer/Limbaugh theory were true, you’d expect to see an increase in low-income turnout between the 2006 and 2010 midterms due to the increases in food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and so forth. But turnout among low-income people actually falls. There’s just no evidence to support the theory that Obama’s antipoverty measures will lead to a mass of government-dependent people backing him in the polling booth.
same

[boutons_deux]

Note To Romney: Overall Share Of Taxes Largely Aligns With Share Of Income

But those 47 percent who have no federal income tax liability are far from the free-loaders Romney described. More than half of them pay the federal payroll tax — at rates higher than Romney pays on his own income — and most of the rest are either elderly, unemployed, or have an extremely low-income.

And by only focusing on federal taxes, Romney ignores taxes at the state and local level, including sales taxes, gas taxes, and sin taxes. In fact, when all taxes are taken into account, Americans of all income levels pay taxes basically in line with their share of total income, as these charts from Citizens for Tax Justice show:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/shareoftaxes2010.png


http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/shareoftaxes2011.png

Basically, those at the bottom of the income scale pay so little of the federal income tax because they make so little of the income.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/18/866231/charts-overall-share-taxes-income/

[Winehole23]

More than anything else, what makes this video damaging is that it confirms what most Americans already suspect about Romney: he holds at least half the country in contempt, including many of the people that normally vote Republican. It isn’t just that Romney expresses contempt and pity for “anyone who isn’t going to vote for him,” as Barro says. What makes this stand out as exceptionally arrogant is the fact that he clearly has contempt for many of the people who were likely to vote for him. This is another self-inflicted wound that comes from Romney’s willingness to say whatever his supporters want to hear regardless of the merits, and it’s another reminder why more Americans dislike Romney than like himhttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-utter-disaster-for-romney/

[MannyIsGod]

I think this will get big play for a news cycle or two but I don't think its a huge mover. Its just the election news season amplifying it until something newer and shinier comes along. I definitely believe its emblematic of Romney's view on the country however. Its telling but I don't think that the general public is necessarily interested in actually finding out who either of these two candidates are but are more interested in fortifying their perceptions of who they are.

[coyotes_geek]

I think this will get big play for a news cycle or two but I don't think its a huge mover. Its just the election news season amplifying it until something newer and shinier comes along. I definitely believe its emblematic of Romney's view on the country however. Its telling but I don't think that the general public is necessarily interested in actually finding out who either of these two candidates are but are more interested in fortifying their perceptions of who they are.

Agreed.

[MannyIsGod]

Its really frustrating though and I guess this is what makes one like myself feel as powerless. The guy really is holding a middle finger to a huge part of his own support and they're still going to support him. Its a lot like the people I know who still support Obama and act like he's this amazing progressive when all he's done is pretty much shit on progressive ideas since taking office (with the exception of marriage and gay rights although he's been more pulled in that direction than actually lead the country in that direction).

If the people who support these candidates aren't going to ever hold them accountable then there is virtually no hope of improvement because hearing criticism from your supporters is always more important than from the opposition. Its easy to write off your opposition but when its someone who supports you then its much harder to simply blow it off.

[BradLohaus]

He'll have to make up for it at the debates though. So more pressure there.

[Oh, Gee!!]

yet Obama is the elitist. :shrugs

[Winehole23]

I think this will get big play for a news cycle or two but I don't think its a huge mover.all by itself, no. but the drip drip dripping of the media on these memes can be devastating. just ask Gore ("I invented the internet") and Kerry ("I was for it before I was against it.")

[CosmicCowboy]

all by itself, no. but the drip drip dripping of the media on these memes can be devastating. just ask Gore ("I invented the internet") and Kerry ("I was for it before I was against it.")

If the Islamic world goes up in flames and oil goes to $150+ people are not gonna give a shit about this. Like Colin Powell told Bush before he went into Iraq, "You break it, you own it". Obama broke it in Egypt and Libya starting with the Cairo speech and ending with cruise missiles and he damn sure owns it.

[boutons_deux]

" Obama broke it in Egypt and Libya starting with the Cairo speech and ending with cruise missiles and he damn sure owns it."

total bullshit. Those peoples started their own revolutions, and lots of countries helped them finish them, but as with the Banksters Great Continuing (Jobs) Depression, you dishonestly pin Obama exclusively for full responsibility.

btw, your boys dubya and dickhead really do OWN Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody helped them break those countries.

[clambake]

hey bou, don't forget about the coalition of the willing. lol

[Winehole23]

If the Islamic world goes up in flames and oil goes to $150+ people are not gonna give a shit about this. Like Colin Powell told Bush before he went into Iraq, "You break it, you own it". Obama broke it in Egypt and Libya starting with the Cairo speech and ending with cruise missiles and he damn sure owns it.I'm not too sure that Obama's Cairo speech three years ago wrecked Egypt, but certainly I agree about Libya.

Unfortunately for Romney, unless the price of oil spikes, Americans don't really give a shit about Egyptians/Libyans/Syrians.

[DarrinS]

Flashback. "Bitter clingers" comments didn't hurt Obama. But then again, the media is much more Obama friendly.


qkP_C8tECPQ


5Zn1vhwvgKI

[Winehole23]

timing counts. it wasn't an election year. I think it did hurt Obama, though. made him look like the sort of out of touch elitist that Romney is revealing himself to be now.

[Winehole23]

btw, the meme that the media is friendlier to Obama would appear to be objectively incorrect: the media is about equally unfriendly to both.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/185722/nearly-three-fourths-of-romney-obama-coverage-is-negative-as-journalists-lose-control-of-campaign-narratives/

[ChumpDumper]

If the Islamic world goes up in flames and oil goes to $150+ people are not gonna give a shit about this. Like Colin Powell told Bush before he went into Iraq, "You break it, you own it". Obama broke it in Egypt and Libya starting with the Cairo speech and ending with cruise missiles and he damn sure owns it.Red Team actively hoping things get worse.

[DarrinS]

btw, the meme that the media is friendlier to Obama would appear to be objectively incorrect: the media is about equally unfriendly to both.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/185722/nearly-three-fourths-of-romney-obama-coverage-is-negative-as-journalists-lose-control-of-campaign-narratives/


This graphic is very telling.

Even Fox has more negative than positive on Mitt.


http://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A0_tFyzCcAAFv9z.png-large.png

[DMX7]

New Obama Campaign Digital Ad:

OUQ-j2sOA7c

[CosmicCowboy]

Red Team actively hoping things get worse.

Fuck off, Chump. I'm not wishing for it but it damn sure looks like the way it's headed.

[ChumpDumper]

It's kind of hard to find positive stories about the Romney campaign tbh.

[ChumpDumper]

Fuck off, Chump. I'm not wishing for it but it damn sure looks like the way it's headed.Team Red!

[CosmicCowboy]

Team Black and Blue!

[Winehole23]

This graphic is very telling.

Even Fox has more negative than positive on Mitt.


http://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A0_tFyzCcAAFv9z.png-large.pngNews flash: Fox News and MSNBC lead the tabloidization of the American press.

[Winehole23]

btw, way to sidestep a direct rebuttal. that's a strong point for you.

[djohn2oo8]

It's kind of hard to find positive stories about the Romney campaign tbh.
And there was already internal fighting before that video came out :lol

[DMX7]

I'm beginning to think Mitt Romney is not very bright.

[boutons_deux]

I'm beginning to think Mitt Romney is not very bright.

Read what he says, and listen to him. Quickly becomes clear that the only thing he's got going for him is his $250M, certainly not his brains.

[Winehole23]

a weak economy, hatred for Obama and political dark money still count. this thing's far from over.

[DarrinS]

btw, way to sidestep a direct rebuttal. that's a strong point for you.


I stand corrected. There is absolutely no pro-Obama bias in the MSM.

[Winehole23]

in the aggregate, there appears not to be.

[Winehole23]

nor was there any significant bias overall in coverage of the the 2008 election, according to the Pew study.

[Clipper Nation]

a weak economy, hatred for Obama and political dark money still count. this thing's far from over.

The people who just blindly hate Obama were always going to vote for Willard regardless.... it's the independents, moderates, and libertarians that he's spent the past two months irrevocably pissing off, and now he's throwing a temper tantrum because he's not getting his way, tbh....

[Clipper Nation]

I'm beginning to think Mitt Romney is not very bright.

You don't need brains (or maturity, apparently) to get rich when daddy was an influential politician in with the old money elite crowd, tbh....

[Winehole23]

... it's the independents, moderates, and libertarians that he's spent the past two months irrevocably pissing off, and now he's throwing a temper tantrum because he's not getting his way, tbh....The chest thumping over this seems premature to me. We'll see in about six weeks whether this was a turning point or just a blip.

[Clipper Nation]

The chest thumping over this seems premature to me. We'll see in about six weeks whether this was a turning point or just a blip.

Considering his campaign is mired in infighting, and Willard keeps saying stupid shit and doubling down on it, it'd take a miracle for him to cure his image in time for the election, tbh..... by all accounts, he has a bunch of yes-men who will let him say or do anything....

Sources have already indicated that since Willard's attempt to blame Obama for the embassy attack backfired on him, they're now going to drop foreign policy and just go full-out Jeebotard.... you really can't make this shit up, tbh....

[boutons_deux]

a weak economy, hatred for Obama and political dark money still count. this thing's far from over.

yep, and by those measures, Gecko should be definitely ahead, and he's not.

When the bad job numbers came out a couple weeks ago, it didn't hurt Barry.

And polls show Barry more trusted on both the economy and Medicare, plus they blame dubya more than Barry for the Banksters Great Depression.

So Gecko's card in the hole is Rove/Kock Bros/1%er's many $100Ms of lying, inflammatory, slanderous ads, and of course Dem voter suppression in the swing states.

Obama is mostly hated by dumbfuck red-staters, xenobphobes, racists and Fox veiwers who would vote for Gecko anyway.

Gecko's big base is white "Christian" males (you know, the tri-corned hat maran assholes financed by Kock Bros) in the 99% (not enough of them in the 1%).

He's lost LGBT, women, Latinos, blacks, Dems, and probably lost enough "independents" by now.

[Winehole23]

Considering his campaign is mired in infighting, and Willard keeps saying stupid shit and doubling down on it, it'd take a miracle for him to cure his image in time for the election, tbh..... by all accounts, he has a bunch of yes-men who will let him say or do anything....bit of an unresolved tension here. overreaching, perhaps?

Sources have already indicated that since Willard's attempt to blame Obama for the embassy attack backfired on him, they're now going to drop foreign policy and just go full-out Jeebotard.... you really can't make this shit up, tbh...."sources say" you're reading the tea leaves.

you could be right, but the tone of dead certainty is off-putting. also, could bite you in the ass somewhere down the line. you'd be surprised what a long memory people have for careless asides around here.

[Clipper Nation]

Read it and weep: http://www.alternet.org/romney-campaign-shambles-according-insider-accounts

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

GOP Civil War Is Coming as Mitt Romney Campaign Flails in Video’s Wake

There is a civil war gathering in the Republican Party. It looks more and more like a dispirited and disappointed collection of factions, preparing to lay blame for a lost presidential election and to do battle to shape a new direction for the Grand Old Party.

Last week the view hardened that the Republican nominee was in close to terminal trouble. Having lost the summer as he let the Obama campaign define him, having lost the conventions when he let Clint Eastwood step all over his acceptance speech, Mitt Romney spectacularly lost his head on Sept. 11 during the mob attack on U.S. diplomats in Egypt and Libya. He came across as a low-life opportunist rushing to exploit a national tragedy in order to score political points and then doubling down on this venal dumbness with a smirking and contentious press conference. This week he may well have finished the job, with a video leaking of him referring to 47 percent of the electorate as government moochers.

Romney’s advisers have taken to bashing the press for covering the bad news, a near-certain sign of a losing campaign, as is the simultaneous effort to quarrel with the methodology of polls showing him trailing in the battleground states with almost no way of reaching 270 electoral votes. The surveys were largely in the field before Romney’s graceless and craven charge that the Obama administration sympathized with those who murdered the nation’s ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. More polls are on the way, and for Mitt the Knife, with his self-inflicted wounds, most of the numbers won’t be pretty.

John Heilemann, who knows a game change when he sees it, rendered a damning verdict in New York: “Romney … badly missed the mark.” Heilemann cited the array of GOP leaders, strategists, and commentators who declined to offer even faint support or instead outright rebuked their own candidate, on and off the record. He pointed to the broader narrative emerging in the media across the ideological spectrum: Romney is losing, knows he is losing, and is starting to panic.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/18/gop-civil-war-is-coming-as-mitt-romney-campaign-flails-in-video-s-wake.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

[mountainballer]

Romney's only chance might be to relativize his statement....


he should say that it isn't his job to care for the other 53% either.

[Trainwreck2100]

I don't. I've never been a big fan but the alternative is 4 more years of guaranteed ineptitude.

4 years of guaranteed ineptitude, or 4 years of most likely ineptitude

those are out choices

[boutons_deux]

Romney comments echo GOP push to have all Americans pay taxes

When Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't pay income taxes, he tapped into an increasingly common GOP criticism of the nation's current tax code.

Congressional Republicans have long complained that nearly half the country does not pay income taxes -- a group they are targeting as lawmakers consider an overhaul of the tax code next year.

GOP leaders have repeatedly said that all Americans should pay their fair share – “have some skin in the game,” as Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, has said, even if it’s just $1.

“More Than Half of U.S. Households Did Not Pay Any Income Tax in 2009,” read the news release headline from Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, as he testified at a tax hearing earlier this Congress.

These Americans, though, may not be the freeloaders Romney characterized in his private talk with donors, which was captured on video and made public.

An analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that of the 78 million American households that pay no federal income tax, most do pay other taxes: payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, or the sales and excise taxes almost all Americans pay each time they fill up the tank or shop for a quart of milk in areas with taxes on purchases.

Of those who escape federal income tax, the overwhelmingly majority, more than 70% earn less than $30,000 a year.

Those who pay no federal income tax are actually 46% of American households, according to the center, and are made up of two groups:

Half are those who do not earn enough to pay the tax under the code, which offers standardized deductions to make the system progressive as it seeks to preserve a “subsistence” level of income. These are largely seniors and lower-income Americans.

The other half are those who benefit from specific tax breaks -- the largest benefits going to the elderly, children and the working poor.

The Tax Policy Center notes that almost all of these tax policies and loopholes come from Congress. Lawmakers often prefer to provide benefits through the tax code rather than on direct spending programs, which can become more politically difficult.

“The high percentage of people paying no federal income tax is not the result of the levy’s tax function,” the center wrote. “It is caused almost entirely by Congress’ insistence on using the tax system to deliver social benefits.”

As President Obama seeks to raise taxes on top-income earners to boost revenues, Republicans prefer a strategy that would lower tax rates for all Americans, including the wealthy, while also “broadening the base,” as it’s called -- spreading the tax burden more widely across all taxpayers.

It is a debate that is expected to be one of the key legislative battles of 2013.

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2732715&postId=2732715&postUserId=7&sessionToken=&catId=7716&curAbsIndex=1&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A7%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%2 6DQ%3DsectionId%253A7716%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

... WC being our local representative :lol

But, but, but Repugs pledged to bully Norquist NEVER to raise taxes (except on the bottom 50% ?? )

[CosmicCowboy]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

[boutons_deux]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

how about some real black TAR, and feathers, on that nigra?

[SnakeBoy]

http://taxfoundation.org/article/tax-equity-and-growth-nonpayers


Conclusion

Since the first income tax code was enacted in 1913, the tax system has protected certain classes of Americans from paying the income tax. Starting in about 1940, however, the federal income tax changed from being a tax largely on high-income workers, to a mass tax on virtually all working Americans. But thanks to the rampant growth in tax credits over the past two decades or so, the federal income tax is reverting to its original composition – a tax largely on high-income Americans.

[Clipper Nation]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

LOL at the neocons saying "just WAIT 'til you see our attack ads!" after they spent months whining about ":cry Obama's mean attack ads :cry"....

Newsflash.... your scumbag, cheater candidate has NO self control.... he's liable to fuck up and say something ignorant and racist at any moment... plus, Obama hasn't even addressed the foreign campaign money that Willard accepted.....

[Trainwreck2100]

these debates are going to be classic

[ChumpDumper]

http://taxfoundation.org/article/tax-equity-and-growth-nonpayersWere income tax the only federal tax folks paid, I might be swayed by an argument that only addresses income tax.

[Th'Pusher]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

:lol yesterday


From an election standpoint, everything he said is true.

All other things being equal he would have a better chance of being elected if he was hispanic.

There are 47% of the people who are gonna support Obama no matter what. Romney has to convince the 5-6% in the middle to vote for him to have any chance of winning the election.

And the message of lower taxes doesn't resonate with those dependent on government.

All true statements.
Luck_The_Fakers_

Now it's fuck it. We'll just smear obama's ass with money to win at all costs. Fucking pathetic

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL at the neocons saying "just WAIT 'til you see our attack ads!" after they spent months whining about ":cry Obama's mean attack ads :cry"....

Newsflash.... your scumbag, cheater candidate has NO self control.... he's liable to fuck up and say something ignorant and racist at any moment... plus, Obama hasn't even addressed the foreign campaign money that Willard accepted.....

LOL @ Boutons not seeing the sarcasm/humor. God your life must really suck to be that angry and bitter.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol yesterday



Now it's fuck it. We'll just smear obama's ass with money to win at all costs. Fucking pathetic

Same goes for you Boutons Junior.

[Th'Pusher]

Same goes for you Boutons Junior.

Sorry. I did miss the sarcasm. Do you stick by your assertion those are all true statements?

[CosmicCowboy]

Sorry. I did miss the sarcasm. Do you stick by your assertion those are all true statements?

Of course they are true statements. If you took off your blue tinted glasses you would see it too. You may not realize that I am not necessarily on the Romney bus and am almost as critical of him as I am Obama.

[CosmicCowboy]

Just to clarify, the exact 47% that supports Obama is not the exact 47% that doesn't pay taxes. Good thing a lot of those ignorant fucks don't bother to vote...:lol

[MannyIsGod]

Just to clarify, the exact 47% that supports Obama is not the exact 47% that doesn't pay taxes. Good thing a lot of those ignorant fucks don't bother to vote...:lol

I think you're missing the point that a lot of those ignorant fucks vote for the GOP. I'm not so sure why you think more vote for Obama at all.

[boutons_deux]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

I heard on the radio that, eg, Rove is considering Gecko a mostly lost cause and is switching a lot of $Ms to Congressional candidates. Probably a good idea since the advertising is state or local and can be REALLY nasty, dishonest, slanderous without drawing national attention.

[DMC]

Many of those 47% don't even vote, however it's true that people dependent on government aid (not SS) vote Dem if they vote. Sure there are a few who are likely republicans, but that's just noise present in any system.

[SnakeBoy]

I heard on the radio that, eg, Rove is considering Gecko a mostly lost cause and is switching a lot of $Ms to Congressional candidates. Probably a good idea since the advertising is state or local and can be REALLY nasty, dishonest, slanderous without drawing national attention.

:lol I hate to think what show you listen to. Rassmussen has Romney up 2, Gallup has him down 1...yeah it's over and the GOP is giving up.

[Trill Clinton]

and to think, just the other day i was just raving to the homies on the block about how Romney will make the hood a better place. no crooked cops, better schools, lower crack sentences, better job opportunities, etc.

well he just lost all my support. i had 14 people ready to vote for Romney and another 40 still on the fence but leaning toward the GOP.

[Bartleby]

:lol I hate to think what show you listen to. Rassmussen has Romney up 2, Gallup has him down 1...yeah it's over and the GOP is giving up.

Rasmussen :lol


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

[SnakeBoy]

and to think, just the other day i was just raving to the homies on the block about how Romney will make the hood a better place. no crooked cops, better schools, lower crack sentences, better job opportunities, etc.

well he just lost all my support. i had 14 people ready to vote for Romney and another 40 still on the fence but leaning toward the GOP.

That sucks for Romney but yeah blacks are so damn sensitive about their welfare checks.

[Th'Pusher]

Snakeboy, you said you're not hard for Mitt and you've made fun of Ron Paul throughout, so of the GOP candidates this cycle, who would you have preferred to Romney?

[Trill Clinton]

That sucks for Romney but yeah blacks are so damn sensitive about their welfare checks.

when all else fails, make a lame race joke. you being a hispanic should be the last person to make stereotypical jokes doggie.

[Clipper Nation]

:lol I hate to think what show you listen to. Rassmussen has Romney up 2, Gallup has him down 1...yeah it's over and the GOP is giving up.
:lol Rasmussen

You DO realize Rasmussen is a known GOP shill poll....

[Nbadan]

Romney is just handing this election to Obama...with Willard constantly on his heels, he won't gain any traction with uninformed undecideds...

and the debates, really? Have you forgotten what a good public speaker Obama is?

[Nbadan]

http://obamadiary.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/118862_600.jpg

[Nbadan]

http://obamadiary.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/118858_600.jpg

[Nbadan]

This is what happens when you get your talking points from wing-nuts...


"There are makers and takers, there are producers and there are parasites," she said. "Americans can distinguish between those who have produced and paid in through no fault of their own and because of Obama's horrible polcies who cannot get a job or are underemployed. That's what the campaign is about."

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mary-matalin-thanks-to-romney-we-can-single

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mary-matalin-thanks-to-romney-we-can-single

[Nbadan]

One third of low-income americans support Romney


While Mitt Romney continues to suffer the fallout from a video that shows him dismissing President Barack Obama's voters, or 47 percent of Americans, as invididuals who do not pay income taxes and depend on government entitlements, new research from Gallup released Tuesday shows that the Republican nominee claims the support from more of those individuals than his remarks seem to suggest.

According to Gallup's polling from the tracking period of Aug. 27-Sept. 16, 34 percent of voters whose household incomes are less than $24,000 a year support Romney. Obama easily wins among those voters, earning the support of 58 percent.

As Gallup points out, a significant portion of the individuals who pay no income tax are the same voters in the lowest income bracket, roughly a third of whom intend to vote for Romney, not Obama.

Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gallup-one-third-of-lowest-income-voters-support

[cheguevara]

holy shit, Bush Jr + Sarah Palin are Plato + Aristotle compared to these clowns romney + ryan

:lmao

[Th'Pusher]

EZRA KLEIN ably deconstructs the "very clever policy two-step" involved in the meme that the 47% of Americans who currently pay no income taxes are "takers" (as Paul Ryan puts it) who refuse to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives" (as Mitt Romney puts it in the video above). As he says, what's happened here is basically that Republicans have cut income taxes, that resulted in many working-class people no longer having to pay income tax, and now Republicans are arguing that therefore the working class (but not the rich) should have their taxes raised or their benefits revoked. But there's also a second two-step involved, and it has to do with the way Republicans sometimes emphasise and sometimes elide distinctions between income taxes and other kinds of taxes.

The way the first two-step works is pretty clear. The reason many lower-income working Americans aren't paying income tax these days, while they continue to pay other taxes, is largely that Republicans have repeatedly cut income taxes, and if you cut income taxes for rich and poor alike then the poor tend to fall off the scale. Mr Klein says:

[W]hen you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform and George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that... But now that those tax cuts have passed and many fewer Americans are paying federal income taxes and the rich are paying a much higher percentage of federal income taxes, Republicans are arguing that these Americans they have helped free from income taxes have become a dependent and destabilizing “taker” class who want to hike taxes on the rich in order to purchase more social services for themselves. ...So notice what happened here: 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.
But this is where we get to the second two-step: the linguistic elision Mr Romney indulges in when he says that "people who pay no income taxes" are people "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." In this case Mr Romney is using "income tax" as if it meant the same thing as "tax", a meme that has surfaced all across the political right over the past few years. This, obviously, is factually inaccurate: Of the 47% of Americans who paid no income tax last year, more than half (28% of all taxpayers) have jobs and pay payroll taxes. (As for the rest, 10% are elderly, and 7% earn less than $20,000 a year.)

The interesting point here is that while Mr Romney uses "income tax" as if it meant the same thing as "tax" when talking about the taxes lower-income Americans pay, Republicans are simultaneously trying to reduce the percentage of total taxes that consists of income tax. For years, it's been a fixture of the laissez-faire right that the federal tax burden should be shifted away from income taxes, which on balance discourage people from working (especially at the lower end of the income scale), and towards consumption and other taxes, which on balance encourage people to work harder and save more. The Republican Party platform this year actually includes a plank calling for a federal value-added tax, on the (exceedingly unlikely) condition that Congress first repeals the 16th amendment to the constitution, which authorises the direct income tax.

You can see this effect in Mr Romney's tax proposals, as well. Mr Romney hasn't promised to cut payroll taxes; he's promised to cut income taxes by a fifth, across the board. On its own, this shift means low-income workers pay the same share of the income-tax burden, while paying a larger share of the overall tax burden. Yet Mr Romney can continue to imply that low-income workers are freeloaders because they don't pay income tax. Then, Mr Romney promises to keep the tax cuts revenue-neutral by ending deductions, which he pledges to restrict to those earning $200,000 a year and up; this isn't mathematically possible, but if it were, it would mean the income-tax burden would shift even more heavily towards high earners, again perpetuating the line that the poor are freeloading. And then there's the consumption-tax option beloved of many conservative economists. If the tax burden shifts towards flat consumption taxes and away from progressive income taxes, it will fall more heavily on the poor. But if people like Mr Romney and Mr Ryan insist on equating "income taxes" with "taxes", they will continue to be able to claim that the poor are "takers" who are "dependent on government" because they "aren't paying any income tax", even while they increase the share of the tax burden that falls on the poor.

There's actually a third aspect of the two-step as well, but I'm not sure it qualifies as an entire two-step of its own. Let's call it two-step two, chutzpah style. Here's the thing: the effects of income tax in discouraging work are far stronger at the low end of the income spectrum than at the high end. The logic behind the flat personal exemptions in the tax code, and behind the earned-income tax credit, is that you end up with huge numbers of otherwise-dependent poor people entering the labour force and working productively if you tip the scales in their benefit. That's why the Clinton administration expanded the EITC, and it's been very successful. But the genius of the "they-don't-pay-income-taxes" complaint is that it takes the tax cuts that were implemented in order to get poor people off of welfare and encourage them to work, and uses them to accuse poor people of being shiftless and dependent on government. This creates a sort of permanent resentment machine, a renewable fuel source for class warfare of the rich against the poor.

And so we switch smoothly from one tax two-step to another. Do-si-do your partner and sashay down.


http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/09/mitt-romney-and-taxes

[Winehole23]

Of course they are true statements. If you took off your blue tinted glasses you would see it too. You may not realize that I am not necessarily on the Romney bus and am almost as critical of him as I am Obama.not even close, tbh

[SnakeBoy]

when all else fails, make a lame race joke. you being a hispanic should be the last person to make stereotypical jokes doggie.

lol your race joke was equally lame, but thanks for informing me that I'm a hispanic...the rare german/irish hispanic I guess :lol

[Winehole23]

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/Content/PDF/T11-0175.pdf

[Jacob1983]

A lot of people that vote for Democrats only vote for Democrats because the Democratic Party is the handout party. Democrats love welfare and affirmative action so it's common sense that minorities will vote for Democrats. War supporters and nation building enthusiasts support the GOP. However, you could say that the GOP and the Democratic Party are both supporters of war and nation building.

[Wild Cobra]

Meh.

There is still a billion dollars of mud left to throw at Obama.

And it's all out there, just waiting to be used. No digging required.

[SnakeBoy]

Snakeboy, you said you're not hard for Mitt and you've made fun of Ron Paul throughout, so of the GOP candidates this cycle, who would you have preferred to Romney?

No one. Romney was the best of a really weak field. Ron Paul was the weakest candidate of the field. The GOP is devoid of a strong leader at this point, as are the democrats.

[boutons_deux]

"the Democratic Party is the handout party"

everybody votes their pocketbook. Wall St and 1% finance the Repugs because the Repugs hand it back, 100x times over.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/09/mitt-romney-and-taxes

Gecko said he paid 13% in "taxes", not 13% in income taxes.

non-income taxes count for Gecko, but the 47% who pay plenty in non-income taxes are moochers and dependents.

[Wild Cobra]

Boutons....

Master of jealousy!

[boutons_deux]

WC, blind, ideological asshole.

[boutons_deux]

Spinning to hide the gaffe of speakng truthfully to his 1% cohort

Romney Says Remarks on Voters Help Clarify Position

Mitt Romney on Tuesday fully embraced the substance of his secretly recorded comments that 47 percent of Americans are too dependent on government, saying that his views helped define the philosophical choice for voters in his campaign against President Obama.

“I think a society based on a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/politics/in-leaked-video-romney-says-middle-east-peace-process-likely-to-remain-unsolved-problem.html?_r=0

The REAL THREAT is NOT the govt, but the Gecko's 1% and UCA driving the financialization of USA and the planet. The Financial Economy is destroying The Real Economy.

And it's unstoppable.

[Winehole23]

WC, blind, ideological asshole.you two were made for each other.

[boutons_deux]

false equivalence

GFY

[Winehole23]

kneejerk meets kneejerk. one to one equivalence as I see it.

[boutons_deux]

"Ryan said Romney’s remarks were “obviously inarticulate.” Asked if he thought Mitt Romney regreted his comments, Ryan responded “I think he would have said it differently, that’s for sure.” "

www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en&tab=my#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Ffeed%2F

[boutons_deux]

kneejerk meets kneejerk. one to one equivalence as I see it.

Kneejerk? What the Repugs and conservatives require is knee in the balls

[ploto]

I wonder what percent of the low income earners would own income tax were it not for the specific tax credits. For many people, they actually do still have a tax owed until they hit the EIC and/or child tax credit.

I also know that in recent years there have been all sorts of extra credits meant to stimulate the economy - that offset taxes owed. There was the "Making Work Pay" credit and Bush's plan to send everyone $600 credit!

I also wonder why Romney does not discuss the fact that all that money he earns in captial gains pays no payroll tax.

[Winehole23]

Kneejerk? What the Repugs and conservatives require is knee in the ballsright on cue. that's a point of similarity and an apt example of what I meant. :tu

[boutons_deux]

10 Desperate and Depressed Conservative Reactions to Romney's 47 Percent Moment



Team Romney's biggest problem continues to be Mitt Romney. It's tough to build a campaign around a cartoonish 1-percenter whose CPU doesn't appear to be programmed for human empathy and who lacks an effective filter between brain and gums.

Will his 47 percent moment prove to be his undoing? Probably not in the short-term; an unusually high number of voters are already locked in, and as Cornell University's Suzanne Mettler's research has shown [3], a lot of Americans receiving benefits from the government have no clue that they are, so people who should be personally offended by Romney's crass remarks may instead think he's talking about “undeserving” blacks and lazy welfare cheats.

But it is hurting the candidate, reinforcing the majority's view of Romney as aloof and uncaring. It's also forcing the campaign onto the defensive, marking another few news cycles in which the campaign is forced to talk about things it would prefer not discuss. Finally, the story provides a perfect opening to once again hammer Romney for refusing to release his tax returns -- has he been among the 47 percent who pay no federal income taxes? It's entirely possible.

Whatever the long-term impact of the video might be, that moment of candor is a bombshell dropped into the election seven weeks before voters go to the polls, and it's triggered a variety of responses from the right. Let's take a tour of what conservatives are saying.

1. The Problem Isn't Romney, It's the Crazies

David Frum (whose Canadian background may serve the function of a tin-foil hat, protecting him from the crazy that's swept his compatriots) thinks [4] Romney “committed the worst presidential-candidate gaffe since Gerald Ford announced in 1976 that 'there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.'" For Frum, what makes it such a killer is the right-wing media's reaction. “You know who's determined that Romney never recover?" he asks. "His deluded supporters in the conservative media world.”

Romney was expressing views that are widely held among a certain group of conservatives, and they are determined to make it as awkward as possible for him to retreat from those views.

And Romney's defenders' big blind spot all comes down to race:

When you ask white Americans to estimate the black population of the United States, the answer averages out at nearly 30%. Ask them to estimate the Hispanic population, and the answer averages out at 22%.

So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in "dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds is not their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receiving Medicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime tax contributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years and now too old to start over.

2. He Was Just Mixing Up The Wingnut Talking-Points

Over at the National Review, Rich Lowery argues that Romney was right, but got his rhetoric confused. “The overall impression of Romney at this event,” writes Lowery [5], “is of someone who overheard some conservative cocktail chatter and maybe read a conservative blog or two, and is thoughtlessly repeating back what he heard and read.”

[H]e jumbled together three different groups (the almost half of the country that’s going to support Obama no matter what; the roughly half of households that get government benefits; the half of “tax units [6]” that don’t pay taxes). Since we’re all in amateur-political-consultant mode, I would counsel disentangling and better explaining what he was trying to say about each of those groups.

The reality, of course, is that Romney cherry-picked one tax – federal income taxes – which happens to be one of our more progressive taxes. It accounts for 42 percent of federal revenues. A more regressive tax, paid by almost every working person -- but not the super-rich who live off of their investments -- is the payroll tax, which accounts for 40 percent of the government's take. And, of course, the idea that the 47 percent of households that don't pay federal income taxes are Democrats is just silly – they're heavily concentrated in red states and a fifth of that group are elderly, a demographic that tends to skew Republican.

3. Some Get It

So, in one sense, we have a sort of political intelligence test. And some conservatives are smart enough to know that, like any falling bombshell, this is a story from which one should run away.

David Brooks, the New York Times' cuddly, non-threatening-to-people-on-the-Upper-East-Side conservative, wrote [7] that Romney's comment, “suggests that he really doesn't know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?”

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

4. Both Sides Do It!

Some conservatives have neither the inclination to defend nor attack Romney's comments. Instead, their view is: look! A shiny thing! Let's talk about Obama's “bitter people clinging to guns or religion” moment from 2008!

Bill Kristol leads the charge, writing [8], “we have in 2012 two presidential candidates who—when they thought they were speaking privately to their fellow 1 percenters—have shown contempt for fellow Americans.” What's more, says Kristol, “Obama was speaking about Democrats who were voting in the primary for Hillary Clinton. So Obama seems to have contempt not just for the Republicans who oppose him, but for millions of Americans who ended up voting for him in November 2008.”

While both “gaffes” were made at private fundraisers, were based on dubious sociological premises and did some damage, as Jonathan Chait notes [9], the underlying messages couldn't be more different. “The spirit of Obama’s remarks,” writes Chait, “was precisely the opposite of Romney’s... the thrust of Obama’s argument was that he believed his policies would help [the bitter gun-clingers], and to urge his supporters to make common cause with them....Romney genuinely seems to conceive of the lowest-earning half of the population as implacably hostile parasites.”

5. Double-Down

One of the more bizarre responses [10] from the right was offered up by Michael Walsh at the National Review. Walsh thinks Mitt accidentally “sounded remarkably like...a real conservative” and says that “he ought to own it.” Then he quotes a Brit who criticized Romney's comments and launched this...odd broadside:

Hey, buddy — he’s our idiot, so don’t get this Irish-American started on your idiots, the House of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, the family of Germans who’ve been ruling your country since Queen Victoria snuggled up with Prince Albert and produced Edward VII and, thanks to a family squabble among Georgie, Willie, and Nicky, drove your country right into World War I — a disaster from which it’s never recovered.

OK, then. Walsh was obviously working out some issues, but he was doing so on the way to comparing a bloodless plutocrat saying stupid things at a fundraiser to the battle of Gettysburg. No, really:

This is Mitt’s time, this is his moment. As at the Battle of Gettysburg, neither side was really looking for this fight at this time and in this place, but here it is. And that means going all in.

Sure, Mitt might have phrased things more elegantly.... but now he has a choice — to back away from the implication of his off-the-cuff remarks, and try to blame his sentiments on infelicity, or to embrace the stark dichotomy he laid out and go with it. This chance encounter should be the thing that forces Romney out of his crouch, away from his krack kadre of kampaign konsultants, and fleeing from his over-reliance on conventional wisdom and polls.

Then he started talking about how Robert E. Lee was looking for shoes when the battle of Gettysburg was thrust upon him and then, presumably, a nurse came with Walsh's meds.

6. Damn Public Opinion!

Richard Grenell, you may remember, was briefly hired as Romney's foreign policy spokesman before the Romney team buckled to pressure by the religious right and ditched him for being gay. (After Romney's hamfisted response to the attacks on our consolate in Benghazi, one suspects that Grenell is pretty happy not to be the one answering reporters' foreign policy questions.) It also turns out that he's quite the wingnut (I had to block him on Twitter [11]). Grenell is ecstatic about the tape's release, tweeting [12], “it worked! the media are talking about how 47% pay no income taxes.”

The problem for both Grenell and Walsh is that this is not a good thing for the Romney campaign. As Greg Sargent pointed out [13], only the hard-right buys into the 'moochers versus looters' narrative.

Pew asked Americans [14] what they think about the amount lower-income people pay in taxes. Only 20 percent think they pay too little, versus 34 percent who say they pay a fair amount and 37 percent who say they pay too much — a total of 71 percent.

Pew also tells me that only 23 percent of independents, and 18 percent of moderates, say low-income people pay too little in taxes, while big majorities of both say they pay a fair amount or too much...

Only 22 percent of self-described middle-class people think lower-income folks pay too little, versus 69 percent who say they pay their fair share or too much.

Meanwhile, the reverse is true about rich people. A majority, 58 percent, say the wealthy pay too little in taxes, while only 26 percent say they pay their fair share. Fifty six percent of independents, and 69 percent of moderates, say the rich pay too little.

7. Dems Are Mad Because Romney Revealed Their Evil Plot

Further down the food-chain of right-wing opinion dwells the Daily Caller's Jim Treacher, who might be the dumbest person on the Internet were it not for the existence of a guy named Jim Hoft [15].

While just about every other conservative at least acknowledged that, yeah, some of the people who don't pay taxes are solid Republicans, or called Romney's comments “inartful,” Treacher thinks it's all true. Under the headline, “The Democrats think Romney just self-destructed by pointing out, um, THEIR ENTIRE STRATEGY [enraged capitals in the original],” he writes [16]: “That’s Obama’s reelection message: 'Vote for me or Romney will take away all the free goodies you’ve got coming to you! By the way, can you believe he called you a mooch?'”

He then offers two examples: an Obama campaign ad touting how a young woman would be able to get surgery because she was able to stay on her parents' private insurance plan until age 26, and a not-at-all-dog-whistle video clip of a black mother saying that she hopes Obama wins because if he does things will get better and she won't have to worry about paying the mortgage or putting gas in her car (although she doesn't say anything of the sort, the video is labeled, “Obama is going to pay for my gas”).

8. It's Not Fair to Blame Romney For the Words Coming Out of Romney's Mouth :lol

Also at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis, after noting that "Media elites are breathlessly reporting” on the comments, simply translates them into something less offensive [17].

This is basically what he was trying to tell the donor who asked the question: We live in a world of limited resources, campaigns must wisely husband their resources (time and money). Political targeting involves two very politically incorrect things — profiling and discrimination, and Obama and I will do both. We will profile and target persuadable, likely voters for advocacy. We will target supporters for turnout. And, yes, both sides will ignore people we know will never vote for us. (Note: I can say this because I’m not running for president.)

He then says we should have a serious conversation about whether “we want to have an entitlement society or an opportunity society?” because right-wingers are hard-wired to not recognize that, in the real world, a robust public sector offers us more opportunity, and more personal freedom, not less [18].

9. Then Jonah Goldberg Said Something Dumb

Let's pause to recap: Mitt Romney said that half of the population are moochers and free-loaders who pay no taxes, and they're all Democrats.

Here's what Jonah Goldberg took away from that [19]:

Romney’s remarks reinforce the overriding problem with his campaign: It is bloodlessly non-ideological. And that is by design. Stewart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t much care about ideas or philosophy....

Even the campaign’s ostensibly ideological ads and soundbites seem offered not as statements of conviction but as carefully — and sometimes not so carefully — crafted slogans aimed at telling the silly swing-voters what they most want to hear.

Yup, silly swing voters want to hear that they're lazy ne'er-do-wells looking for a handout.

10. When in Doubt, Blame the Lamestream Media

We are talking about conservatives – a group that actually believe themselves to be perennial “victims,” but not of the predations of the 1 percent. No, they are victims of the “liberal” media's enduring conspiracy to make people like Mitt Romney seem out-of-touch – the same media that refuses to take charges that Obama's birth certificate is fake or that climate scientists are trying to tackle capitalism with their false data about climate change seriously.

Appearing on Fox and Friends, Laura Ingraham said [20] that it was media malpractice just to cover the story. “I’m very pumped up about this,” she told Gretchen Carlson. “I think it’s ridiculous that people are seizing on it and that we’re even giving all that much airtime to it, frankly.”

At the American Spectator, Aaron Goldstein acknowledged [21] that it was a story, but then dinged Romney for bothering to hold a presser and trying to address the comments.

After all, Barack Obama didn't call a press conference after it was revealed that he had called small town Americans "bitter" people who "cling to guns and religion" at a Democratic fundraiser in San Francisco. Of course, there was no demand for him to do so because not only did the liberal press not question him about it but they were in agreement with him and still are. The liberal press, by and large, holds the values of small town America in low esteem.

I think it was unnecessary for Romney to have the press conference because he was drawing attention to himself on the defensive rather than drawing attention to himself for going on the offensive against Obama. Besides I hardly think this press conference will placate the liberal media.

Goldstein, a Canadian who learned all about small-town America from his home in Boston, is right about one thing: a hastily called press conference where a smirking candidate answers three questions and then flees the stage probably won't placate those liberal media meanies.

http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/10-desperate-and-depressed-conservative-reactions-romneys-47-percent-moment

Poor $250M NoWhereMan Gecko, we're picking on him. And Gecko is gonna be a Tough Guy with all the nasty terrorists, Putin, Iran? Gecko is a fucking, stupid wimp who can't talk straight, never mind shoot straight (can't do that, either).

[Winehole23]

Not Paying Income Tax Represents Relief from Government

By Daniel Larison (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/daniel-larison)

September 18, 2012, 2:14 PM (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/not-paying-income-tax-represents-relief-from-government/)


Jim Antle makes (http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/17/the-real-problem-with-romneys-47-percent-gaffe/) the point I was trying to make yesterday (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-utter-disaster-for-romney/):

There is little evidence that the people who have stopped paying income tax as a result of Republicans’ policies have moved leftward politically.
Today married parents of children, the kind of people who benefit from the child tax credit, are actually Romney’s strongest supporters .
Correct. These are some of the people that Romney described as those that see themselves as victims, and cannot be convinced to take “personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Conservatives are always complaining about elites that look down them and have no respect for them, so they should have no difficulty recognizing unvarnished elite contempt as unmistakable as this.



These comments also reflect Romney’s political ineptitude. A significant portion of the 47% that don’t pay income tax were already going to vote for him. They aren’t out of reach, and they aren’t going to vote for Obama “no matter what.” Many of them would probably never vote for Obama, and their reasons might have nothing to do with taxes or benefits. They are already on his side, and Romney doesn’t even seem to know it. What makes the remarks even less defensible is that Romney should want as few Americans paying taxes as possible. Not paying income tax isn’t a gateway to government dependency. It’s supposed to represent relief from government.
Antle continues:

[B]As National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru put it, “Conservatives cannot really believe that it was a flaw in America’s founding that nobody paid income taxes to the federal government for almost all of the country’s history before the welfare state.”
Indeed, quite a few conservatives today would ideally prefer an arrangement in which the federal government didn’t have the ability to levy such taxes. Antle then asks:

Since when has it been the job of Republicans and conservatives to make sure everyone has IRS obligations?
If Romney didn’t understand what he was talking about, that isn’t very encouraging, either, since it suggests he has no idea who has benefited from Republican tax policy in the past. If we wanted to be extremely generous, we could say that Romney was just confused and jumbled together things that don’t go together and adopted a nonsensical position by mistake. That is hardly a recommendation of Romney’s understanding of the relevant issues.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/not-paying-income-tax-represents-relief-from-government/

[boutons_deux]

"Romney’s political ineptitude"

It's not only Gecko, it's his entire team. Not Ready For Prime Time

"If Romney didn’t understand what he was talking about"

If? :lol Gecko is as stupid and fatally incurious, as half-baked as his fellow frat-rat cheerleader predecessor dubya

[Winehole23]

picking at a nit to oversell your case. that's very typical.

[boutons_deux]

nit? :lol

if only gecko's problems were really just nits :lol

[Winehole23]

Larison was suggesting Mitt might be kind of dumb. It's unsurprising neither that you agree nor that you go overboard with the characterization.

[boutons_deux]

It's unsurprising that you have nothing but sterile academic debates about trivial shit.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol..it's unsurprising you can't see grey.

[Winehole23]

It's unsurprising that you have nothing but sterile academic debates about trivial shit.you lack versatility, in other words.

gross oversimplification and endless repetition of the same five or ten cliches?

no thanks.

[boutons_deux]

you lack in versatility, in other words.

gross oversimplification and endless repetition of the same five or ten cliches?

no thanks.

gfy. Instead of your inane sterile academic debates over minutiae, I, otoh, see the bigger, important picture and the few themes, big strategies that guide what's going on and what will be going on.

[TeyshaBlue]

gfy. I am unable to generate a single, original cogent thought. I can cut and paste tho!

:rolleyes

[boutons_deux]

:rolleyes

TB :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

you lack versatility, in other words.

gross oversimplification and endless repetition of the same five or ten cliches?

no thanks.

[Clipper Nation]

gfy. Instead of your inane sterile academic debates over minutiae
Such as?


I, otoh, see the bigger, important picture and the few themes, big strategies that guide what's going on and what will be going on.
So why then do you chose to repeat the same Team Blue cliches over and over again? Someone who saw the bigger picture of what's going on would never say stupid shit like "Clinton didn't bomb Iraq" or "let's nationalize the banks," B....

[MannyIsGod]

I was giving this some more thought and I think this will play larger than I originally gave it credit for.

Mitt's tone is just about as out of touch as I've ever seen a presidential candidate. The part about people refusing to take personal responsibility is delivered in the way someone talks about a pest infestation. Its not a mindset about how can I help this part of America but its more bout how to best overcome the hurdle of which that part of America represents. I think this is going to be a big factor from here on out because I think this was exactly who Romney is and I think thats going to continue to come through.

[boutons_deux]

And today he backtracked by mentioning legit moochers like old people and military vets. :lol

But of course he didn't mention the key Repug/conservative/Randian targets of black and brown moochers.

Gecko would certainly not be President of and for all America.

[TeyshaBlue]

I was giving this some more thought and I think this will play larger than I originally gave it credit for.

Mitt's tone is just about as out of touch as I've ever seen a presidential candidate. The part about people refusing to take personal responsibility is delivered in the way someone talks about a pest infestation. Its not a mindset about how can I help this part of America but its more bout how to best overcome the hurdle of which that part of America represents. I think this is going to be a big factor from here on out because I think this was exactly who Romney is and I think thats going to continue to come through.

I tend to agree. It's a built-in talking point for the Obama campaign and just rock hard stupid to boot.

[boutons_deux]

Even after all the Gecko Gaffes (c), silly, desperate Repugs think this inarticulate NoWhereMan is gonna whip Barry's ass in the debate(s) and win the the Presidency.

btw, Honey Boo Boo got a bigger audience that Gecko's convention speech. :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

Even after all the Gecko Gaffes (c), silly, desperate Repugs think this inarticulate NoWhereMan is gonna whip Barry's ass in the debate(s) and win the the Presidency.

btw, Honey Boo Boo got a bigger audience that Gecko's convention speech. :lol

LMAO at you having the audacity to call other people liars.

Honey Boo Boo -----3 million
Romney Speech-----25.28 Million

[Winehole23]

David Brooks blames (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks) the Romney 47% comments on maladroitness: the awkward mis-expression of a man pretending to be something he's not.


Likely so.


But they also reveal that Romney has been reshaped by this campaign. The dread to which Romney gives voice in his Boca Raton speech - that "makers" are about to be electorally overwhelmed by "takers" - is a dread expressed again and again by conservative media and conservative thought-leaders. "Democracy is two lions and a lamb voting on what's for dinner": how often have we heard that old country-club quip repeated these past four years? Only this time, the quip is repeated not as a joke, but with real fear.


The background to so much of the politics of the past four years is the mood of apocalyptic terror that has gripped so much of the American upper class.


Hucksters of all kinds have battened on this terror. They tell them that free enterprise is under attack; that Obama is a socialist, a Marxist, a fascist, an anti-colonialist. Only by donating to my think tank, buying my book, watching my network, going to my movie, can you - can we - stop him before he seizes everything to give to his base of "bums," as Charles Murray memorably called them.


And what makes it all both so heart-rending and so outrageous is that all this is occurring at a time when economically disadvantaged Americans have never been so demoralized and passive, never exerted less political clout. No Coxey's army is marching on Washington, no sit-down strikes are paralyzing factories, no squatters are moving onto farmer's fields. Occupy Wall Street immediately fizzled, there is no protest party of the political left.


The only radical mass movement in this country is the Tea Party, a movement to defend the interests of elderly incumbent beneficiaries of the existing welfare state. Against that movement is a government of liberal technocrats dependent on campaign donations from a different faction of the American super-rich than that which backs Mitt Romney himself.


From the greatest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, the rights and perquisites of wealth have emerged undiminished - and the central issue in this election is whether those rights and perquisites shall be enhanced still more, or whether they should be allowed to slip back to the level that prevailed during the dot.com boom.


Yet even so, the rich and the old are scared witless! Watch the trailer of Dinesh D'Souza's new movie to glimpse into their mental universe: chanting swarthy mobs, churches and banks under attack, angry black people grabbing at other people's houses.


It's all a scam, but it's a spectacularly effective scam. Mitt Romney tried to make use of the scam, and now instead has fallen victim to it himself.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/18/the-sinister-message-behind-romney-s-gaffe.html

[LnGrrrR]

Thank goodness that Romney clarified that I wasn't a moocher. I was really worried for a second.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/18/the-sinister-message-behind-romney-s-gaffe.html

The 1%, predominantly Euro-Americans, deeply resent demographic (voters) threat from the growing propulations of Afro-Americans and Indian-Americans (aka Hispanics). That's why voter disenfranchisement and intimidation (show your papers) of those populations is critical to Repug electoral chances.

[boutons_deux]

LMAO at you having the audacity to call other people liars.

Honey Boo Boo -----3 million
Romney Speech-----25.28 Million

Did you think I meant NUMERICALLY "bigger"? :lol

[boutons_deux]

The End Of WASP-Dominated Politics

Fifty years ago, the military, foreign service and top political offices were all dominated by WASPs — white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

"The minimal but unrelenting qualification was to be white, Anglo-Saxon in heritage and Protestant in religion," the cultural critic Joseph Epstein writes in his book Snobbery. "If one was Catholic, or surely Irish Catholic, or Jewish, forget about it; if one was black, don't even think about it."

Because of the country's changing population and shifts in educational opportunities, none of that is true anymore.

"Not a single group can hold onto power in any particular institution going forward," says Guy-Uriel Charles, founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics. "This reflects the fact that we are much more of an open society than we were previously, but we are also a society that by the numbers is increasingly diverse."

None of this would have seemed possible a half-century ago. Back then, Protestants composed three-quarters of the academic, military and business elites, according to contemporary academic studies.

The rules were so rigid that Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator and 1964 GOP presidential nominee, wasn't allowed to play golf at a club outside Washington that was literally exclusive.

"I'm only half Jewish, so can't I play nine holes?" :lol

"Franklin Roosevelt appointed more Catholics and Jews to his presidency than all previous presidents combined," says Andrew Preston, a Cambridge University historian.

The '60s Changed Everything

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/09/17/161295588/the-end-of-wasp-dominated-politics?sc=17&f=1001

That's why the VRWC/1% Euro-Americans absolutely HATE FDR and the '60s, and government.

Government allowed and legalized institutions, laws, regulations that broke the E-As grip on power.

[CosmicCowboy]

Did you think I meant NUMERICALLY "bigger"? :lol


I didn't THINK it, you WROTE it.




btw, Honey Boo Boo got a bigger audience that Gecko's convention speech. :lol

[boutons_deux]

I didn't THINK it, you WROTE it.

Honey Boo Boo bigger! :lol

[Winehole23]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/pay-no-taxes-heritage.jpeg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/pay-no-taxes-heritage.jpeg)

Part of the reason so many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. That’s why, when you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform and George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that. (You also see a jump after the financial crisis begins in 2008, but we can expect that to be mostly temporary.)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/

[Winehole23]

So notice what happened here: 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.same

[Winehole23]

(Republican presidents/Democratic Congresses)

[CosmicCowboy]

http://www.flash-game-design.com/images/pendulum/1.gif

[LnGrrrR]

Remember, rich people need their taxes cut so they can contribute to the economy, but normal middle class and poor folk need to pay taxes so they have "skin in the game".

Makes total sense.

[scott]

Don't worry about these people.

[boutons_deux]

8 Very Bad Things That Happened to Mitt Romney...Just This Morning

Yesterday was a no good, very bad day for the Romney’s campaign, who had to mop up the mess their candidate created when he said that “47 percent” of Americans are “dependent on government” and “believe they are victims.” But the bad news hasn’t stopped today.

From poll numbers to Republican politicians throwing Romney under the bus, the campaign’s woes continue.

1. Ryan Says Romney Was ‘Inarticulate’

Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential candidate called the “47 percent” comments “inarticulate” in an interview [1] with a local news station in Nevada. “He was obviously inarticulate in making this point,” said Paul Ryan. Asked by a reporter if Romney regrets his comments, Ryan said, “I think he would have said it differently, that’s for sure.”

2. GOP New Mexico Governor Rejects Romney’s Comments

Governor Susana Martinez may be a Republican, but she’s running as fast as she can away from Romney’s comments writing off half the country. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall picks up [2] on Martinez’s comments that add to the “pile on.”

“We have a lot of people that are at the poverty level in New Mexico, but they count just as much as anybody else,” Martinez said. “I think, certainly the fact that New Mexico provides that safety net is a good thing.”

3. Peggy Noonan’s Verdict on the Romney Campaign: ‘An Intervention is in Order’ :lol

It’s not just Martinez who is hitting Romney’s comments that were captured in video published by Mother Jones. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan has joined in.

“This is not how big leaders talk, it’s how shallow campaign operatives talk: They slice and dice the electorate like that, they see everything as determined by this interest or that,” Noonan wrote in a blog post. [3] “You know what Romney sounded like? Like a kid new to politics who thinks he got the inside lowdown on how it works from some operative. But those old operatives, they never know how it works.”

4. GOP Candidate Linda McMahon: ‘I Disagree With Governor Romney’

Yet another Republican candidate wants nothing to do with Romney’s “47 percent” comments. Linda McMahon, the GOP candidate for Senate in Connecticut, wrote on her Facebook page: “I disagree with Governor Romney’s insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care. I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be.”

5. Polls Show Obama’s in Command

New polls show that President Obama has gained ground on Romney nationally and in swing states.

Obama is up by 5 points nationally, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll--and the survey was taken before Romney’s infamous comments. [4] NBC notes [5] that their data shows increased optimism among voters about the economy. “Forty-two percent of voters also believe the economy will improve in the next 12 months, which is a 6-point jump from August, and a 15-point rise from July.”

In swing states, the story’s the same. The Hill reports [6] on swing state polls:

President Obama leads Mitt Romney in three key swing states, according to a series of new polls.

Obama leads Romney by 51 to 45 percent in Wisconsin, 50 to 46 percent in Virginia and 47 to 46 percent in Colorado, according to polls conducted by Quinnipiac University for CBS and The New York Times.

The figures in Virginia are particularly notable, as this is the sixth poll in a row showing Romney slipping behind Obama in the critical state. Another from WeAskAmerica out Wednesday morning showed a similar 3-point Obama lead.

6. Obama Keeps Calm on David Letterman’s Show

The contrast between Mitt Romney’s floundering campaign and President Obama can’t be more striking. Obama appeared on the “Late Show With David Letterman” [7] last night, and he looked relaxed and calm. Obama also took the opportunity to criticize Romney’s comments.

“My expectation is that if you're president, you've got to work for everyone, not just some,” said Obama. [8]

7. Ann Romney Makes It Worse

AlterNet’s Adele Stan notes that Mitt Romney’s wife attempted some damage control last night in an interview with a local Fox affiliate. But she may have made things worse.

Stan writes: [9]

After assuring the anchor who conducted the interview that Mitt had no "disdain for the poor," in interview Eli Stokol's phrase, Ann Romney explained why women, especially, should vote for her husband. As a woman, Mrs. Romney said, "I want to know what motivates the person that I would be voting for, and I would say what motivates Mitt is that he cares. This is a guy that obviously doesn’t need to do this for a job." :lol HOLY SHIT! :lol

Wow. I feel better already. So, apparently the reason that Barack Obama is running for the presidency is because of the big bucks that come from that government salary -- a job he won, according to Mitt Romney, because a bunch of moochers thinks Obama will fill their coffers with more of that government dough.

8. North Carolina Republican Disavows Romney in Debate

As you can see, a host of Republican candidates have disavowed Romney’s “47 percent” comments in an effort to distance themselves from what is fast becoming a toxic Romney brand. A North Carolina Republican running for a Congressional seat is running away from Romney as well.

Last night, during a televised debate, Mark Meadows criticized Romney’s comments.

“It might come as a surprise, but Mitt Romney didn’t call me before he made those comments and ask for my advice,” Meadows said, according to an Asheville-based paper. [10] The paper notes that “Meadows said voters in the 11th Congressional District are not as easy to define as Romney’s comments seemed to try to do.”

“I’m concerned about all 750,000 people,” said Meadows.

http://www.alternet.org/print/hot-news-views/8-very-bad-things-happened-mitt-romneyjust-morning

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol alternet


A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of Swing States, completed Monday night, shows Romney lagging President Obama by only 2 percentage points, 48%-46%, well within the survey's margin of error and a point closer than their contest last month. Nationwide, Obama's bounce from the Democratic National Convention is dissipating: The president now leads across the country in the Gallup Poll by a single point, 47%-46%.


The full Swing State tracking update offers Rasmussen Reader subscribers a combined view of the results from 11 key states won by President Obama in 2008 and thought to be competitive in 2012. The states collectively hold 146 Electoral College votes and include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. If you do not already have a Rasmussen Reader account, subscribe now.

Platinum Members have access to detailed demographic information.

In the 11 swing states, Mitt Romney earns 47% of the vote, and the president is supported by 46%. Three percent (3%) are not sure, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

In 2008, Obama won these states by a combined margin of 53% to 46%, virtually identical to his national margin.

This is the fourth day in a row that Romney has posted a slight lead after the president’s convention bounce put him ahead for several days. The race in the swing states is now back to where it was at the beginning of the month.

When “leaners” are factored in, Romney receives 48% of the vote to Obama's 47%. Leaners are those who are initially uncommitted to the two leading candidates but lean towards one of them when asked a follow-up question.

[boutons_deux]

CC :lol

your 1%er's gonna get his privileged, wooden, dumbfuck, broom-up-his-ass stomped by the cool ass n!gg@.

[boutons_deux]

Tax Moochers: Banks

There is one perhaps surprising group you can put in the latter category: the nation's banks. Sure, banks pay taxes, but they pay a lot less thanks to a giant and underappreciated distortion in our nation's tax code. Moreover, this tax code distortion makes the financial system and the economy more fragile, prone to bankruptcies and runs. Banks profit, and the economy teeters. Great bargain, huh?

It's the tax code's favoring of debt over equity.

For businesses, debt interest payments are tax deductible; equity payments, like when a company pays out a dividend, are not. At the margin, this encourages entities to take on more debt than they otherwise would, as Steven M. Davidoff noted in a Deal Professor column earlier this year. More debt not only makes companies more vulnerable to bankruptcy but also makes investors more susceptible to panics, when they withdraw their capital en masse. More equity would make the world more stable.

"The worst thing the tax code can do," says Victor Fleischer, a tax specialist at the University of Colorado, "is to make it harder to use a sensible capital structure." Mr. Fleisher, a contributor to The New York Times DealBook, testified in front of Congress last year about this problem.

This distortion is well known. President Obama, in his tax reform proposal, mentioned it, though he didn't make any specific proposal about what to do about it. The Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, is proposing substantial tax cuts with the loss of revenue made up with the closing of loopholes. He has yet to specify any of those loopholes, but corporate debt interest deductibility hasn't been in the conversation.

What isn't well appreciated is how much the debt deduction helps the banks. The first way is direct: Banking is a highly leveraged industry. Banks use more debt than equity to finance their activities. The tax break makes the debt cheaper and encourages banks, at the margin, to gorge on more.

Financing techniques that have become more popular in recent decades benefit from this distortion. Bundling of debt, like credit card receivables or mortgage debt, called securitization, turns out to give banks a tax bonanza. For accounting purposes, banks are typically able to treat their bundling of this debt as a sale. But for tax purposes, banks often get to call it debt. Those payments to the buyers of the securitizations' bonds are therefore tax deductible to the bank.

More important, there's an indirect and unremarked benefit. Banks help companies raise money in two main ways: through the sale of stock (equity) and debt, either through loans or the sale of bonds. When a company goes public, selling stock for the first time, the underwriting banks make more money than they do for a comparable debt offering. But banks make it up on volume with debt. Bonds expire. Companies issue more of them all the time.

Partly because of the tax code distortion, corporate debt is underpriced and overconsumed by the bank's corporate customers. Indeed, the debt business dominates the world of investment banking these days. When corporations raise more debt compared with equity, that fattens bank profits.

http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/tax-moochers-banks

[Clipper Nation]

:lol Neocons reduced to spamming Rasmussen polls as if we don't all know that they're a GOP shill poll

[MannyIsGod]

Rasmussen has had a GOP bias for a ton of election cycles now. But more over, I don't understand why people keep running to national polls. National polls are pretty much damn near meaningless. If you want to know who's "winning" then look at state polls in the swing states. Obama is still doing extremely well there although he has lost some of the bounce (which is why I said wait a few weeks). Obama isn't the one who has to make up ground though.

[CosmicCowboy]

Rasmussen has had a GOP bias for a ton of election cycles now. But more over, I don't understand why people keep running to national polls. National polls are pretty much damn near meaningless. If you want to know who's "winning" then look at state polls in the swing states. Obama is still doing extremely well there although he has lost some of the bounce (which is why I said wait a few weeks). Obama isn't the one who has to make up ground though.

I posted the most recent swing state polls today. The latest are USA Today and Rasmussen. Both are within the margin of error. USA has O up 2 , Ras has R up 1.

Admittedly the results I saw were averaged out so if you take it state by state your mileage may vary.

[boutons_deux]

Pew has Barry up 8 points on a poll before Romneys "I don't GAF about 47% of Americans" gaffe. Much bigger lead in mid-Sep than the previous several winners.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/09/19/161424581/obama-opens-8-point-lead-in-pew-poll-big-advantage-with-women-blacks-young-voter

[Borat Sagyidev]

I think it's sort of funny for anyone to say this.

A small sample of the most outspoken conservatives on this board will almost always yield pure losers. Most of the worthwhile posts come from Agloco, Scott and Manny..who by coincidence dislike the GOP.

[Borat Sagyidev]

Pew has Barry up 8 points on a poll before Romneys "I don't GAF about 47% of Americans" gaffe. Much bigger lead in mid-Sep than the previous several winners.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/09/19/161424581/obama-opens-8-point-lead-in-pew-poll-big-advantage-with-women-blacks-young-voter

"@mittromney You know that lead Obama Has? You built that."

[boutons_deux]

lol..it's unsurprising you can't see grey.

TB :lol

I see the whole spectrum.

Repugs are 100% BLACK.

When the BEST they can nominiate are criminals dubya/dickhead,

clueless, hopeless assholes like McLiar/pitbull bitch,

and sociopathic 1%er assholes like gecko/Ryan (beating stinkier assholes like Gingrich, InSantorum :lol ),

the Repugs are totally without redeeming values.

[Mikesatx]

Has anyone done the math on the taxes? What is your fair share? Unless it is clarified from both partiies how can it not be anything other than class warfare? If married jackass 1 makes 75k a year and married jackass 2 makes 10 million dollarrs a year assuming it is all earned income (not dividends or investment income) and there are no credits, deductions, charitable giving or other breaks hear is the math:

Jackass 1
$75,00
x .25
= $18,750

Forecast over 10 years taxes paid $187,500.

Jackass 2
$10,000,000
x .35
= $3,500,000

Forecast over 10 years taxes paid $35,000,000

Now assume jackass 1 needed every cent to support the family after taxes. Nothing invested just continuing on the current course.

Assume jackass 2 was able to survive on $3,000,000 a year and invested the rest. After 10 years jackass two with a modest growth rate of 5% would have accumulated a little more than $44,000,000. Now assume jackass 2 walks away and decides to live on the income and dividends generated by that $44,000,0000 million. At a rate of 4% that would be $1.7 million. Assuming the majority is either dividends or long term capital gains he/she would be taxed at 15%. That tax is approx. 264k per year.

Jackass 2 retired after 10 years and lived off his investments for the next 10 years. His total taxes paid over that 20 year stretch was approx. $37.6 million.

The tax liability for jackass 1 over that same period was $387,500

Which jackass paid their fair share? If Jackass 2 didn't what should that share have been? If Jackass 1 paid too much or too little what should their amount have been?

I understand there are loopholes and deductions for both jackasses. The assumption is that each jackass is a smart jackass and using every trick within the confines of the tax code.

[Wild Cobra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/

One possible problem with the numbers in this article is it is using percentage of the population. there is another set of numbers that uses a percenatge of tax filers. these will be different.

[boutons_deux]

Stewart destroys the Repug network aka Fox News

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/jon-stewart-fox-coverage-romney-47-video-chaos-bullsht-mountain?akid=9422.187590.0VRvSY&rd=1&src=newsletter713913&t=3

[Spurminator]

Has anyone done the math on the taxes? What is your fair share? Unless it is clarified from both partiies how can it not be anything other than class warfare? If married jackass 1 makes 75k a year and married jackass 2 makes 10 million dollarrs a year assuming it is all earned income (not dividends or investment income) and there are no credits, deductions, charitable giving or other breaks hear is the math:

Jackass 1
$75,00
x .25
= $18,750

Forecast over 10 years taxes paid $187,500.

Jackass 2
$10,000,000
x .35
= $3,500,000

Forecast over 10 years taxes paid $35,000,000

Now assume jackass 1 needed every cent to support the family after taxes. Nothing invested just continuing on the current course.

Assume jackass 2 was able to survive on $3,000,000 a year and invested the rest. After 10 years jackass two with a modest growth rate of 5% would have accumulated a little more than $44,000,000. Now assume jackass 2 walks away and decides to live on the income and dividends generated by that $44,000,0000 million. At a rate of 4% that would be $1.7 million. Assuming the majority is either dividends or long term capital gains he/she would be taxed at 15%. That tax is approx. 264k per year.

Jackass 2 retired after 10 years and lived off his investments for the next 10 years. His total taxes paid over that 20 year stretch was approx. $37.6 million.

The tax liability for jackass 1 over that same period was $387,500

Which jackass paid their fair share? If Jackass 2 didn't what should that share have been? If Jackass 1 paid too much or too little what should their amount have been?

I understand there are loopholes and deductions for both jackasses. The assumption is that each jackass is a smart jackass and using every trick within the confines of the tax code.

Your math is wrong. That's not how tax brackets work.

[elbamba]

Someone emailed me this the other day and I thought it was funny. MMMMMMM. Beeeer.

Tax System Explained in Beer

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100…

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7..

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

[Wild Cobra]

Yes, it's an old example I've seen over the years with slight variations. People just don't realize that the rich can move away easily and stop paying for others.

Are you libtards listening?

[Th'Pusher]

Someone emailed me this the other day and I thought it was funny. MMMMMMM. Beeeer.

Tax System Explained in Beer

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100…

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7..

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

The bartender shouldn't be reducing their daily cost of beer when he is in debt $16T tbh. He should actually consider raising their cost until his debt is paid. They're going to show up regardless.

[TeyshaBlue]

The bartender shouldn't be reducing their daily cost of beer when he is in debt $16T tbh. He should actually consider raising their cost until his debt is paid. They're going to show up regardless.

:lol BOOM!

[Wild Cobra]

The bartender may have reduced prices to bring in more customers, and knows if he raises his prices, he may lose customers.

[elbamba]

The bartender shouldn't be reducing their daily cost of beer when he is in debt $16T tbh. He should actually consider raising their cost until his debt is paid. They're going to show up regardless.

I agree in part and disagree in part. The bill should go up for everyone to cover the debt. However, they will not all show up, the tenth has options to spend his money elsewhere, and regardless of who is sitting in the place of the bartender, there seems to be no interest in preventing the tenth from spending elsewhere. i.e. The rich can always put there money in safe accounts offshores and although some politicians talk a tough game, there is no interest in closing loopholes for the people who can afford the lawyers and accountants to ship their money overseas.

[Th'Pusher]

The bartender may have reduced prices to bring in more customers, and knows if he raises his prices, he may lose customers.

The bartenders prices are the lowest they've been in 50 years and there is not another bar around that matches his quality and charges so little.

[Th'Pusher]

I agree in part and disagree in part. The bill should go up for everyone to cover the debt. However, they will not all show up, the tenth has options to spend his money elsewhere, and regardless of who is sitting in the place of the bartender, there seems to be no interest in preventing the tenth from spending elsewhere. i.e. The rich can always put there money in safe accounts offshores and although some politicians talk a tough game, there is no interest in closing loopholes for the people who can afford the lawyers and accountants to ship their money overseas.

Well at least we agree that reducing prices further is hogwash. Now we just need to find the price where the whole group continues to stay and drink.

[Wild Cobra]

The bartenders prices are the lowest they've been in 50 years and there is not another bar around that matches his quality and charges so little.
You mean the people who pay the $50+ a night cant go out of town to another location?

[Th'Pusher]

You mean the people who pay the $50+ a night cant go out of town to another location?

Well, the problem is they are not goin out of town. They are staying and drinking in the same bar, enjoying all the amenities, but paying the out of town bartender.