Okay, I have to respond to Mr. Romney. Let me give you a few salient facts, Mittens. I have a Juris Doctor. I have worked in Hollywood. I write books. I manage a natural gas and oil company. I voted for Barack Obama. And I pay more in taxes then many people make in a year. And guess what, Mitt? I’m going to vote for the president again.
How dare you insult me and the millions of people who, in fact, are paying taxes? They pay sales taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes. They work their asses off while you and your kind make money by trading money, clip coupons and create nothing.
So here’s a you and you billionaire buddies who are trying to buy this election so they can avoid regulation, and pay virtually no taxes, and in one particular case stay out of jail when you tell you’re justice department not to prosecute him. You can all bite me.
And FYI — I’m voting for Barack Obama again.
Yes, this latest iteration of the “They don’t pay taxes” meme is just blazingly stupid. First, the basic premise is wrong in so many ways. People who don’t pay Federal Income Tax mostly pay many other taxes and at a higher rate than Mitt payed on his Federal returns. Many of the non Federal Tax Payers are poor or elderly. There is almost certainly no larger a percentage of “laziness” among the poor than among the rich. So, at the root, the 47% statistic is meaningless.
In this particular case, Mitt is wrong in asserting that all of the people who don’t pay Federal Income Tax vote Democratic. There are a number who (for some reason that escapes me) do vote Republican. Mitt is disparaging people who vote for him.
Then, of course, there are many people (like myself and Melinda) who do pay Federal Income Tax and will be voting for President Obama. From what I can tell from the few tax returns Mitt has made public, I pay a higher percentage than he does.
Mitt’s statements were wrong on pretty much every level of wrongness.
They’ll probably tshurt a VAT on us, but they’ll forget to remove the income tax Hey, let’s just do both Technology and efficiency is constantly putting people out of work, and we keep adding more workers to the work force. In good times, maybe all those surplus workers can become musicians, sell Avon, or become merry maids. But with government screwing things up, higher unemployment/underemployment might progress.Manufacturing of ipods or anything is becoming more and more mechanized it sure seems it will get rougher for the average worker. The good thing is a nice standard of living can be had for not much money. But managing distribution or redistribution of wealth/jobs might make for some angst. Maybe competition would bring more services to more people merry maids and child care for more commoners ? Better care for the elderly? To some degree we’ve already had this problem, with government and unions providing cushy lifetime employment, often for those that might have more trouble competing in the open market. Perhaps a working welfare program would be needed, but they should make less than the privater sector, not much more with early retirement and lifetime super benefits.A vibrant middle class might keep a whole economy humming, but constant trillion dollar stumbles by big government keeps crippling the capitalist/socialist mix we have now.
I’m sure we pay at a higher rate, Steve. All my income is ordinary income. The only tax break I get is the mortgage deduction, and I’m damn lucky to have it. My tax rate is in the upper 20% bracket. And because I didn’t pay myself a lot from my company last year I was only able to fund my IRA to the tune of a bit over $2000.00. But Mitt has an IRA that is valued in the millions?! WTF????
How that IRA grew to the size that it seems to have grown is a very interesting question indeed.
Was there ever really even a marginal chance that you might vote for Romney, or for any Republican nominee? Seriously?
And, Melinda, you’ve said before that one of the big motivators for you personally is your concern with how much health insurance costs you, and your desire to have some sort of universal health care scheme under which you will be ensured of having it and paying no more for it than anyone else. That seems to me to say that you want to have health insurance provided at, in some measure, my expense, and more to the point, at the expense of millions of young and healthy people who will have to pay high rates to cover older and less healthy people. That’s an entitlement too, you know. There’s more than one way to be entitled and to put your own special interests first. (Forgive me for making this personal
First, I have in fact voted for Republicans in my life. But this current crop is insane with their antipathy toward gays, immigrants, women, and this lack of empathy. As I have said in other places — after Teddy Roosevelt this party has been on the wrong side of history on every issue.
And by your argument everybody driving on the roads and interstates are a bunch of losers and moochers who are taking money from you because your tax dollars go to support that roads that are for the common good. I think health care is also something akin to the common good. I don’t want the kids in school with my friends children to not have received vaccinations against whooping cough, etc. I don’t want the people preparing my food in restaurants to be ill with infectious diseases.
I resent the fact that insurance companies can refuse to cover me because of a pre-existing, but I am fortunate I have the money to enter a high risk pool. A lot of my friends don’t. Is it your contention that they’re just supposed to die? I don’t want to live in that country. We all pay in for services we don’t directly use. I don’t have children, but I’m happy to support a public school system and community colleges. I’m happy to pay for a vibrant and active FDA, and utilities so that my electricity turns on, and my water is clean. I don’t resent the fact that other people who have not been as fortunate as me, who don’t pay taxes get to have electricity and clean water too.
Individualism is all well and good but the motto of the United States is Out of Many, One. This lack of kindness and empathy is the thing I find most repugnant about Republicans, and extreme Libertarians. And I have no respect for half-assed libertarians like Ron and Rand Paul. Aside from their gold standard gibberish, they want to ban abortions, and want a marriage amendment to the Constitution. Sorry, boys, you don’t get to be rugged, Ayn Rand individualists, and climb inside my vagina.