Campaign rally, Virginia, 9/26/12
"...probably heard by now about Bishop Romney's address to a group of high-dollar donors, where he repeated a claim we've heard a lot of Republicans make over the past couple of years--that a full 47% of Americans are lazy, no-good moochers doing nothing all day long but sucking up government goodies and begging for more. That nearly half of our fellow citizens pay no federal taxes at all but still think they deserve a voice in how our country is run. That almost one in two Americans are getting a free ride on the backs of the productive members of society, are nothing more than parasites on the hard-working taxpayers who keep this country running by supporting a permanent class of indolent, entitled bums with their hands out for their next government check. Well, guess what? Michelle spreads that kind of stuff in the White House garden to make the veggies grow!
I mean...look here now, I want you to think about that 47% of Americans that the Governor thinks are leeches. Close to half the country--gasp--that pays not one thin dime in federal income taxes! Well, guess what. Out of that 47%, nearly two out of three are kicking in federal payroll taxes. They're paying into Social Security, they're paying into the Medicare and Medicaid programs, they're keeping their end of the social contract we all have with each other--that we all kick in what we can, when we can, so that none of us will have those golden years taken away, so no one of us will ever be forced to decide between medicine and shelter, between clothing their loved ones and feeding them. One thing they're not...they're not people (air quotes) 'who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them.' No sir, they're people who believe that when you pay all your insurance premiums, you get to cash in the policy when you need to.
So let's take that two-thirds out of the equation--that leaves us with just a little over 18%. These must be the real freeloaders that Mr Romney was talking about, the ones who think they're (air quotes again) 'entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.' Well, actually, more than half of that 18% consists of senior citizens, and we've kinda all decided together that once they reach a certain elder status...hey, I'm trying to be polite, my mother-in-law might be watching...that they can be taken off the tax rolls. It's that social contract again, spoiling all the fun. 'Whattya mean, we can't tax grandma and grandpa? Curses!' Sometimes I think the governor gets confused about whether he's running for President--or Sheriff of Nottingham.
Anyway, now we're down to just under 8%, the real bums, the ones who aren't elderly, but still pay no income or payroll taxes to the feds. But guess what--7 of that 8% are what they call the 'working poor,' the folks whose yearly income totals less than $20,000. In most cases they're still paying state and local taxes, still paying sales tax and gas tax and highway tolls and license fees, still contributing to our common enterprise. And by the time they've taken all the common deductions on the old 1040, the ones available to most working people--child credits, mortgage deduction, earned-income tax credit--they can pretty much offset their federal tax liabilities. You'd think a businessman would understand that concept.
So finally we've gone all the way down from 47% to less than one, just a tiny sliver of earners who pay not a penny in federal tax and don't have the excuse of age or low income, fewer than 1% who make more than 20 grand a year but still refuse to shoulder their share of the national burden. And I will confess, I'm sure that some of them are the type of folks who've learned how to beat the system, how to cash the checks and give nothing back. But I'm also sure that for every one of those free-riders at the lower end of the income scale, there's one or two who make a lot more than $20,000, who'll pay 30 accountants to avoid paying one extra nickel in taxes, who spend 50 large on a seat at a dinner, the kind of dinner where the entertainment is a candidate for the highest office in the land telling the assembled diners that close to half the country--present company excepted, of course--needs to (air quotes one last time) 'take responsibility and care for their lives.'
Shoot, I'm confused. Doesn't it seem like he might be bad-mouthing some of his own people here? I mean, even if--especially if--we give him the whole 47%, that's probably gonna include roughly as many Republican folks as Democratic folks, wouldn't you think? Not sure if it's good politics to say bad things about people you hope will vote for you.
But the big thing that struck me was how off-the-cuff it all was. You know, there's been a lot said about me and (gestures to both sides of podium) teleprompters. That I talk a lot slower and with more pauses in an interview than during an address. It's true, I do. But that's mostly because every word the President says is on the record these days. And as the governor found out, that goes for candidates too. But by the same token, I'll talk differently in an interview than I will in a conversation on a rope line at a rally. I'll feel more relaxed talking one-on-one with someone, even if there's 15 smartphones waving in the air around us. And that's the biggest thing I took away from watching that tape--how utterly relaxed Bishop Romney seemed to be, how much at home he apparently felt in those surroundings. He looked more comfortable there, in the middle of all that luxury, saying all those unkind things about his fellow Americans, than he's looked just about anywhere on the campaign trail up until now. Says a lot about him. More probably than he ever wanted to say. And it says a lot about the kind of nation he wants America to be, a place where only the right people matter. My girls told me about these two texting words they use. YOYO, for 'You're On Your Own' and WITT, for 'We're In This Together.' I told them I'd rather be known as a WITT than as a YOYO.
And I'd rather you know, and he knows, that it is 'my job to worry about those people.' And this is how I'm proposing to help them...."
(Author's Note: posting this once again right before bedtime in the hopes it'll get some eyeballs during the day. Curse this inconvenient involuntary personal circadian! Will try to get to comments this afternoon or evening--thenkew for your gracious understanding and your kind words about the first of these, posted some days ago. I tug my forelock in your general direction. H/T to Urban Institute and Brookings Institution for all the percenticles and statisticoids.)