Posted on 08/01/2012 6:36:08 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
NEW YORK, New York — Hot on the heels of his eight-vote Iowa-caucus landslide, Willard Mitt Romney is crisscrossing New Hampshire before Tuesday’s key primary. Romney is masquerading as a limited-government, free-market executive from next-door Massachusetts. From the Golden Gate to the Granite State, voters should greet Romney’s impersonation with a quarry full of skepticism.
In fact, Romney increased taxes by $309 million, mainly on corporations. These tax hikes, described by Romney apologists as “loophole closures,” totaled $128 million in 2003, $95.5 in 2004, and $85 million in 2005. That final year, Romney proposed $170 million in higher business taxes, the Boston Globe reports. However, the Bay State’s liberal, Democratic legislature balked and only approved an $85 million increase.
“Tax rates on many corporations almost doubled because of legislation supported by Romney,” Boston Science Corporation chairman Peter Nicholas explained in January 6, 2008’s Boston Herald. Also, from 5.3 to 9.8 percent, Romney raised the tax on subchapter S corporations owned by business trusts — an 85 percent hike. “Romney went further than any other governor in trying to wring money out of corporations,” the Council on State Taxation’s Joseph Crosby complained.
Romney also created or increased fees by $432 million. He was not dragooned into this by greedy Democratic lawmakers; Romney himself proposed these items. In 2003 alone, Romney concocted or boosted 88 fees. Romney charged more for marriage licenses (from $6 to $12), gun registrations (from $25 to $75), a used-car sales tax ($10 million), gasoline deliveries ($60 million), real-estate transfers ($175 million), and more. Particularly obnoxious was Romney’s $10 fee per Certificate of Blindness. Romney also billed blind people $15 each for discount-travel ID cards.
While Romney can take credit for a $275 million capital-gains tax rebate, property-tax relief for seniors, and a two-day, tax-free shopping holiday, he also must take responsibility for signing $740.5 million in higher taxes, plus that $85 million in business taxes that he requested and legislators rejected.
“Romney did not even fight higher Death Tax rates,” notes former State Assembly Minority Whip Steve Baldwin (R – California), a Romney critic. “When the legislature considered this issue, Romney’s official position was ‘no position.’ This echoed Barack Obama’s ‘present’ votes in the Illinois State Senate.”
As Romney drained his constituents’ pockets, the Public Policy Institute of New York’s Cost of Doing Business Index rated Massachusetts in 2006 as America’s fourth costliest state in which to practice free enterprise. The Tax Foundation dropped Massachusetts from America’s 29th most business-friendly state to No. 36. The Tax Foundation also calculated that, under Romney, Massachusetts’ per-capita tax burden increased from 9.3 to 9.9 percent. In real dollars, the Romney-era per capita tax burden grew $1,175.71.
As if impoverishing his own taxpayers were not bad enough, Romney’s March 5, 2003 signature raised taxes on non-residents retroactive to that January 1. Perpetrating taxation without representation, Romney’s law declared that, “gross income derived from… any trade or business, including any employment,” would be taxable, “regardless of the taxpayer’s residence or domicile in the year it is received.” Consequently, according to data furnished by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, between 2002 and 2006, New Hampshire residents who work or do business in the Bay State shipped Massachusetts $95 million above what they paid when Romney arrived. The average tax paid by New Hampshirities into Massachusetts grew $458 — from $2,392 in 2002 to $2,850 in 2006 — up 19.1 percent.
Notwithstanding the higher taxes and fees that Romney himself advocated, he claims that he was a powerless victim of a Left-wing legislature. Nonsense. The profusion of Democrats on Beacon Hill did not prevent Romney’s GOP predecessors from dramatically cutting taxes. Former Republican governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci signed more than 40 tax-cut bills while Democrats ran the state house.
Romney seems stuck at 25 percent support among Republicans. That’s because 75 percent of GOP voters simply don’t trust him. There are at least 740.5 million reasons not to trust Romney on taxes, either.
The outcome is not in my hands.
___________________________
Your hands pull the voting lever. God works THROUGH His people.
“...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)
John Kerry and about 99.999% of the Democratic party would rather eat a turd than say the things Romney has been saying. I suspect Romney will never get praise from the bitter-enders but I also suspect he will not completely turn his back on those that "brung him to the dance".
/johnny
I think most of us are in the same place (I was also a Newt supporter). At this point...splitting the vote...or not voting at all (to cancel votes for Obama) is to basically throw the election to Obama. THAT would be neither a logical nor a principled action.
Also, by focusing our intelligent support (and praying) for more good people in both the House and the Senate, we give more strength to counter some of the weak areas that Romney may demonstrate.
MOST important goal: Get Obama OUT!!!
The problem is your buddy SoConPubbie has no problems with Obama. He has never posted a cross word about Obama, just Romney. Come on, the guy is a troll and everyone knows it. The mods should have yanked his posting priveleges long ago.
I wonder which vote will achieve the best result?
;-/
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams.
/johnny
Here’s the theory- that the GOPE will likely take the Senate and keep the House, in a position finally to freeze Obama in place, unable to move, stopped cold, whereas these same RINOS, under Romney the Socialist, will gladly give him (Romney) everything he wants, just ‘cuz.
The Establishment wants us out and to move the Party to the left.
This is very true...but the question would arise as to what principle is being voted for.
Is it the principle of protest?
or
Is it the principle to achieve the result that would best bless our nation?
It's the principle that I won't vote for a pro-abortion, anti-gun, socialized medicine, big government liberal.
/johnny
Very true. The GOP-E got their asses handed to them yesterday in Texas. I expect that lesson will have to be repeated until the GOP-E goes the way of the dodo bird.
/johnny
If this is a test from the heavenlies, I would like to pass it, and trust God for the rest. It’s as though we have been given two sinking ships to board. Choosing neither has to mean something, even if not here on this earth where such a choice seems foolish in the eyes of the world. It is, first, for the unseen things that we strive. Thanks be to God for you.
Texas rocked yesterday! This is what it looks like when people rise on conservative principle and are seen fighting back the Establishment.
The convention should have been brokered but the fearful folded in immediate and huge numbers, turning their pitch forks into nail files for the Establishment pick. Unbelievable, really. They are about to get a haircut with Romney, about whom they have no clue what’s coming.
The next four years for me will be exactly like the last four no matter who wins. You guys act like there is some great moment of salvation coming if Romney wins but there isn’t.
Romney is nothing but another soft non threatening moderate who isn’t going to do anything of substance. The destruction of the country will continue by way of open borders, marxist ideology in schools and over regulation and taxation. We’ll continue to give money to failing green industry (under the guise of “public/private partnerships”) as our energy infrastructure continues to collapse.
Things didn’t get as bad as they are because of the current idiot in the white house, they’ve continuously worsened through the last 3 administrations and both GOP and democrat control of the house.
You guys are so busy fighting the democrats that you’re losing the war badly.
Is there not a chance that he means what he says now? People CAN change you know.
Even with a continuation of his non-conservative tendencies, there are still areas where he absolutely does NOT align with Obama.
Wouldn’t THAT be FAR better than Obama?
I do not like the choice I’ve been given, however, Romney and Obama are NOT equal in their ideological/political/economic thought.
With respect, why are you posting about your issue with SoCon to me? My problem has nothing to do with SoCon. My problem is that I’ve had it up to my back teeth with being misrepresented by people who are otherwise solid conservatives.
I’m a pro-life social conservative who can’t and won’t vote for Romney because I believe conservatism is the answer to our woes rather than mushy moderates and liberals. For expressing that belief in conservative values here, I’ve been called a traitor, a disgrace, a liberal, an Obama supporter, and a whole list of other things I’m not. It’s ridiculous.
SoCon can speak for himself (I’m assuming he’s a he and I’m sorry if I’m wrong). But if Romney supporters and Romney voters want to defend his demonstrated record, they’re welcome to do so, but posting that record is fair play, just as the ABOs posting about Virgil Goode and the Green Party is fair play.
I have no problem with you, or even ScottinVA. My original post was intended to show how the same broad brush can be used with equal vigor in both directions. I’m sure Scott doesn’t support statism, but my third-party vote doesn’t mean I support the idiot currently occupying the People’s House.
Actually, poor political leadership is only reflective of a sick culture that has turned its back on God. THAT is the real root cause of our present condition as a nation.
“Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”...Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“You guys act like there is some great moment of salvation coming if Romney wins but there isn’t.”
No - what I am absolutely sure of is that our country CANNOT survive another 4 years of 0. Your solution?
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