— Hypocritical because many of those folks not paying federal income taxes actually pay higher federal tax rate, than an insanely rich person like Mitt Romney, who lives off tens of millions of dollars a year in investment income, does. As Klein notes, “when you account for both sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of their income in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romney paid.”
So how does a presidential candidate and former governor come to such a fundamental misreading of a country (whose citizens work longer hours than almost any other industrialized country, by the way)?
Romney’s misconception didn’t come from nowhere. It’s an article of faith on the right fostered by the far-right wing news media’s house of mirrors, especially those of The Wall Street Journal editorial page and Fox News.
A decade ago, the WSJ famously called people who are too poor or too old to pay federal income taxes “Lucky Duckies” a decade ago. Ayn Rand called them “looters” and “parasites”, which Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan softened to “takers” and “makers,” language also used by the WSJ.
Fox News has relentlessly pounded on the “takers” meme, while glorifying the “makers.” As usual, Jon Stewart had the best criticism of this news media house of mirrors more than a year ago.
Part one:
Part two:
If you want to figure out where this gaffe originated, watch them both all the way through.
— Further Reading:
People actually think it really matters which blood-thirsty, warmongering, corporatist-statist bankster-bubba gets elected. Hilarious!
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 18 Sep 2012 at 04:27 PM
Dang Ryan, for a guy who didn't intend to show up his colleague, you sure showed him up>/a.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 18 Sep 2012 at 05:14 PM
Because of ridiculous content distribution contracts Jon Stewart videos cannot be played in Canada. Thus we need a reference to a clip title and (preferably) an air-date so we can have some hope of tracking them down. Thanks.
#3 Posted by Stephen Downes, CJR on Tue 18 Sep 2012 at 05:27 PM
Mark McKinnon, Republican strategist and Bush campaign aide, wrote the following today:
"I loved Michelle Obama’s line in her speech: 'A presidency reveals who you are.' So do campaigns. And mark me down as one Republican not happy with what is being revealed about Mitt Romney.
#4 Posted by DGarr, CJR on Wed 19 Sep 2012 at 03:03 PM
Oh what the hey, like the WSJ post of yore, this post needs a few Ruben Bolling strips to lighten it up.
Can't go wrong with the original:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jWkmcNTRKFc/R3P2q6A7dsI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/TJjkCoj685M/s1600-h/lucky_ducky.gif
And the always relevant:
http://img.waffleimages.com/082380ad7c7d6b5d6fec6b10a7440f77de84962d/lucky%20ducky%2010.gif
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 20 Sep 2012 at 12:34 AM
And a bit more contemporary:
http://img.waffleimages.com/486f596ab5e44eda49415ec2b10375ac16b9fa41/lucky%20ducky%2019.gif
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2011/10/28
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 20 Sep 2012 at 12:36 AM
Back on a lucky ducky serious note, Timothy Noah's put up a couple of solid posts on TNR:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/107386/mitt-romney-and-the-47-percent
Highlight from this one:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/107471/voter-suppression-and-the-47-percent
"One meaning that eluded me initially was its implicit rationale for the voter suppression Republicans are promoting in the name of fighting election fraud.
If “there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what” because they are “dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims” who “are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” and if the only sensible thing for Romney to do is “not to worry about those people” because “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives”—if all that is true, then ignoring them really isn’t going to be enough. Not if they constitute fully 47 percent of the electorate. You need to block their path to the polls. Nothing too overt here—just a little petty harassment. They aren’t the best-organized people to begin with, so all you have to do is shut down their ministers’ souls-to-polls bus operations on Sundays, require a driver’s license and maybe even proof of citizenship. That sort of thing."
Again, these words from Romney are more indicative of the republican id than they are of the carefully thought out ideas of a knowledgeable presidential candidate. These are the kinds of ideas which are motivating a major political party within the United States.
And when you look at the policies which are motivated by these ideas, you see a very very ugly party.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 20 Sep 2012 at 12:47 AM
I have one wrord. Well, two: Joe McCarthy
#8 Posted by Harry Eagar, CJR on Fri 21 Sep 2012 at 03:07 PM
The working poor and indigent (and majority of lower middle class white men) who vote for The Republican's because of their conservative social agenda or who are just anti gay anti-immigrants - anti blacks and pro guns and bibles and unwanted babies get exactly what they deserve -A royal screwing from the rich and powerful who disdain and abhor them as ignorant lazy losers and laugh all the way to the banks.
Bravo Romney for showing how you rich white men really feel about the weak and the lame and the poor and ignorant folks who you successfully/skillfully play like wooden headed puppets.
#9 Posted by dave nelson, CJR on Fri 21 Sep 2012 at 05:17 PM
Another couple of good articles. One from Mike Konczal about the Lucky Duckies and other alternative strains of thought providing the animus for the 47% storytelling:
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/four-histories-rights-47-percent-theory
And the NYTimes has a good story and a polished graphic to tell:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/politics/romneys-anxiety-over-takers-conflicts-with-longtime-gop-stand.html
"For a long time, cutting taxes for the poor was a major emphasis of the Republican Party. One reason that many poor people no longer pay federal income taxes is that they qualify for credits such as the earned-income tax credit, which has its roots in conservative thinking and has long been supported by members of both parties as a way to help the poor without increasing welfare payments or raising the minimum wage. The credit was added to the tax code when Gerald Ford was president, and was expanded by Republicans and Democrats, including President Ronald Reagan, who called it “one of the best anti-poverty programs this country has ever seen” in 1986.
President George W. Bush, for his part, doubled the child tax credit, and his tax cuts erased the federal income tax liability for millions of households."
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 23 Sep 2012 at 02:45 AM
You see, we liberals have been anxious about tax cuts, like the payroll tax and such, since the beginning because they do undermine the revenue required for entitlements and other necessary government expenses. Conservatives, on the other hand, have pushed tax cuts as their anti poverty / anti recession program.
But many conservatives do not want to push tax cuts which help the poor. They held their noses to vote for those tax cuts, for now, and they fought the payroll tax cut extension, demanding that it must be 'paid for' before it could be extended because that was the responsible thing to do (unlike the Iraq war etc...).
So in republican circles you have people who want to starve the beast and pass tax cuts to everybody, rich or poor, to do so. Then you have people, like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, who want to ">'broaden the base' and 'eliminate the loopholes' from the tax code - meaning they want to take deductions away from the 47%.
Which is why you have republicans getting riled at Grover Norquist, because his group is holding them all to a stupid tax pledge, they can't even accept the 3 to 1 spending cut to revenue increase offers (that even the awful David Brooks has to say are no brainers) that Obama keeps making. Even when Obama puts social security and medicare on the table for a few scraps of revenue (a hypothetical 10 to 1 deal was refused by all the Republican candidates during the primary debates, remember), these jokers say no.
Which makes liberals really queasy because that means the only thing saving social security, medicare and such are republicans who can't say yes to what they want.
Eventually republicans are going to say yes and what they will say yes to are spending cuts (which will exclude the military) that will affect the poor in exchange for revenue increases which will affect the poor.
and they will brand it as a way of getting the 47%'s skin back in the game.
And it's unfortunate that there are so many centrists on the Democratic side who will be willing to go along with this.
This is why people need to elect less Ben Nelsons and (sad to say) Barack Obamas and more, much more, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens. The democrats are better than the republicans, but that doesn't mean the party is good enough.
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 23 Sep 2012 at 03:43 AM
URL Mangler!
"Then you have people, like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, who want to 'broaden the base' and 'eliminate the loopholes' from the tax code - meaning they want to take deductions away from the 47%."
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 23 Sep 2012 at 03:48 AM