Source: New York Times
Posted on 09/18/2012 3:37:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
Mother Jones has obtained and released video of Mitt Romney saying some things that Americans and the media will no doubt take uncharitably.
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, 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. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax....
Romney went on: "[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."
This is certainly an inartful way of attempting to make the point that Romney was attempting to make. It's also unclear what point he was actually attempting to make; if he believes that 47% of Americans are dependent on the government for their livelihood, he's simply mistaken.
The Romney campaign responded almost immediately with a boilerplate statement about how Romney's tax and economic plans will help all Americans, government beneficiary or no:
Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy. As the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government, including the record number of people who are on food stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million Americans who are struggling to find work. Mitt Romney's plan creates 12 million new jobs in four years, grows the economy and moves Americans off of government dependency and into jobs.
It's likely an offshoot of the conservative talking point that 47% of Americans don't pay income taxes. Which is true! But unfortunately, a lot of conservatives make the leap from there to claim that total tax burden isn't high enough on middle- and lower-income people (without taking into account things like sales and payroll taxes) and that either they should pay more taxes or we should slash social spending.
Moreover, as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote at National Review, it's just not helpful to base an ideology off the theory that there are too many "moochers" in society.
There is a certain plausibility to the claim that the more people fall off the income-tax rolls, the more will support federal activism. But there is a series of evidentiary hurdles that this claim cannot begin to overcome. There is no evidence that changes in the percentage of people who pay income tax has had any effect on public opinion, let alone a large one. The U.S. that began the Democrats’ 40-year reign in the House of Representatives in 1954 had roughly the same percentage of non-payers of income tax (24.9) as the U.S. that ended it in 1994 (24.4). A relatively large proportion of the citizenry paid income taxes in the early 1960s. It didn’t stop the Great Society from being enacted. The number of people who pay no income taxes moved up fast between 2006 and 2010, which has helped set off conservative alarms. But voters turned sharply right between the elections of those two years.
It would be a different conversation if we were to talk about the people whose livelihood actually depends on government social safety net programs. It's not 47% of people. "Entitlement spending," as broadly defined as a share of income, is only at 18% (though that has been rising in recent years). Romney could make the argument that that is too much, but that's not the argument he's making.
If there were truly 47% of Americans who believed that they were benefits of government programs and refused to vote for any politician who worked to curtail the welfare state, America would be in a precarious position. Romney's just wrong on the facts here.
There have been progressives writing that this is a moment that Romney is going to regret. It's possible - but it's not the case that the candidate was making grand claims about morality and government. He certainly seemed to be on a rambling rant where he is wrong on the merits of who pays, who benefits and, perhaps most of all, who's willing to vote on these issues.
A point could be made on the total progressivity of the taxes-and-transfers part of the federal budget. Ed Morrissey noted awhile ago that, during the recession, the average household now receives more in benefits than pays in taxes to the federal government. That's not to say, as Romney seemed to, that these households are dependent on the government or see government help as necessary to their livelihoods. The federal government does have, however, a progressive tax-and-transfer state that benefits a very large number of people.
"The 47% moment" has been seized upon this afternoon as some grand revelation about Mitt Romney's disdain for moochers and will likely be used to paint him as a kind of Ayn Rand Objectivist, turning his nose up at society's leeches and moochers. That's not the case; if the simplest explanation is the best, it's that Mitt Romney has his facts wrong based on some logical leaps involving the total number of federal income taxpayers.
UPDATE: As pointed out on Twitter, Ronald Reagan once bragged about his tax reform plan that would remove poor people from the income tax rolls. From a 1985 speech:
Another key component of our proposal is to provide America's families with a long overdue break by practically doubling the personal exemption. Indeed, our plan would drop virtually every poor family in America off the tax rolls entirely. And a working family with two or three children would pay less than a 10 percent income tax on its earnings well into the $25,000 to $30,000 range.
And he was right: President Reagan's Tax Reform Act of 1986 increased the personal exemption and standard deduction - measures that completely eliminated the income tax burden of some low-income filers.
Post #13 is right on. And don’t forget, folks, Soc. Sec. also is the umbrella for “Disability”. Some folks are truly disabled but many on “Disability” are NOT really disabled. You can get disability for being too overweight to get a job or for being “bi-polar” because of drug abuse in your 20’s and 30’s. The SS umbrella covers more than just old folks. And a lot of people getting SS do NOT vote.
The sad fact is that it wont be just 4 more years. With two or three more radical liberals on the USSC it will be closer to 40 more years!
I could see that commie bastard appointing Lizzy ‘fakesquaw’ Warren, Jenny Grandmole, Eric Holder,...
Exactly... All you people who are threatening to sit the election out just because Mitt isnt the perfect candidate...Just remember, you’re helping the Left destroy America, and you will be held every bit as accountable as the scumbags who vote for them.
You said: “those that are on the Govt dole, ALL VOTE”....
NO THEY DO NOT!!! Some are truly needy people who are geographically stable. But, many of them move every 3 months or are staying with family or friends. Some are getting disability because of past drug use and they are diagnosed as “bi-polar”. They have very unstable lifestyles and are not even registered to vote. Same goes for many of the Welfare crowd who are just sorry and lazy and have no interest in voting or any other civic duty. All they care about is having enough money for their “40 ouncer” and their marijuana and someone to raise bail money to get them out of jail every 2 or 3 months.
If everyone on the Govt. Dole voted, there would never be another President other than a Liberal Democrat.
“By making people dependent on government hand-outs, he is the architect of keeping people existing just above the poverty line, never aspiring for anything better.”
The sad part is, a certain percentage of the population is just fine with that. The “very unskilled” know they’re not ever going to be paid a decent wage wihtout great effort on their part and they know they can do okay by scamming the system and making a little cash off the books.
So what happened 50 years ago (1962)?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Some of the ‘major happenings’ SINCE 1962...
THE GREAT SOCIETY
Reclassifying Drunkeness and Drug Use from self abuse to a Disease.
Declaring that car in your driveway that takes YOU to work everyday was NOT worth defending because it was a replaceable machine, not something as important as the SLUG THAT STOLE IT rather than get his own job.
Saw something on one of the ‘judge shows’ (daytime TV - which by the way are overrun with BO ads, can imagine what the screaming shows get) which apparently had some 25yo with a few kids saying she was drawing 900 a week SSI because of work related stress????I thought she meant per month but when Judy(??) questioned her (calmly at first) she said 3600 a month.. Almost cost me a TV....
As mentioned before, Johnny and Janey were running for Class President...Janey worked for every vote she was trying to get, while Johnny sat on his butt.
The day of the election, in final speech, Janey told all she would do for the class etc...
Johnny got up and said “If elected, there will be FREE ICE CREAM for lunch EVERY day”.
Johnny won in a landslide, even Janie voted for him.
Keep the freebies coming, let Mitt blow another sure thing and we get stuck with BO another four dreadful years....
One of Nixon’s many “gifts” to this country. One of the many reasons I have hope for our country is that we survived the ten disastrous years of the Johnson and Nixon presidencies - at least so far.
You mentioned that you are voting against obama, not that you are voting for Romney.
Same here.
I rest my case
and may the least worst guy win
“He is not trying to convince those people. He concedes them to obama.”
Actually what everyone is mussing is that regardless of what the real numbers are, everyone knows there are moochers and no one self identifies with that group. It’s not me, it’s my lazy brother in law... Every body sees the problem and it’s not them.
This will probably help Mitt. It’s kind of like class envy in reverse.
You rest your case?
WTF are you talking about? Mitt Romney is a good man.
Take your snark elsewhere.
quit it! quit it! This is not the time to be picking Romney apart. We have a 2 party system and one of them is going to win. We need to circle the wagons and extract every possible vote for the Republican candidate. 4 more years of this abject marxism and incompetence will leave us with no country to defend. Romney was not my first choice, but he is now my only choice. Save the nitpicking until after President Romney is inaugurated. Right now we have to stop the welfare express. We need every Reagan Democrat, every Reagan Catholic,Every Jew who wants Israel to be safe. Every person who has liberty burning in their soul to vote Republican. I’ve lived almost 60 years in the greatest, freest, country in the history of the earth. . but my children are not going to experience that unless we can get this socialist muslim-leaning monstrosity out of the White House!
Romney is saying the same thing I have said for the last 4 years.
Those receiving the benefits of my labor are damned sure not going to vote to go to work.
“He concedes them to obama. His goal is to reach the 4% that still claim to be undecided. His goal is 50.1% of the vote.”
Totally correct. This video just shows that the big-money donors get the same spin which we do: Romney tells them that he must talk and act like a Democrat in order to win the undecideds, who only listen to Demo-speak.
I’m glad Romney said what he did. He could’ve skipped the press conference later to clarify.
I think Romney’s campaign should hire on Greg Gutfeld as a consultant from now ‘til the election. He knows how to put ideas into words that people can understand, and in a interesting way.
-— Greg Gutfeld as a consultant from now ‘til the election. He knows how to put ideas into words that people can understand, and in a interesting way. -—
Agree.
That 47% has been lulled into a false sense of security and dependence, because Obama if re-elected will pull the plug on all of it to create a nationwide panic, its the predicted scenario.
Because only by tearing down America and then “fixing” it in a socialistic agenda will his full effect and purpose be done.
Obama and his handlers wanted as much of America dependent, then to pull the rug out, and when they are truly broken like a wild mustang will they pull the Communist wagon.
He gets them hooked, he stops the drug so speak, they panic and the he gives them their fix, but now they lose their will to protest, and they will be converted truly.
Romney is right that 47-48% of people will vote for Obama no matter what. Just like 47-48% of people will vote for Romney no matter what.
However, it’s absolutely wrong to claim that the lowest 47% of income earners (i.e. those that pay no federal income tax) will automatically vote for Obama. Obviously, he does not know those people. I come from those people, I know those people, I work with those people, I help those people, and MANY poorer people are very religious and very conservative. The problem with Romney’s commment is that it shows that he, like many others, are totally out of touch.
The problem in this country is not the bottom 47%. The problem is the liberal elites, and their hollywood/media influence. That’s not the bottom 47%.
Watch the press conference. He made it clear that Obama had a floor of 47% and that he, too, had a very high floor. And that the difference between the 47% and his floor is that the 47% love government dependency. He only spoke the truth.
Anyone who would not consider voting for Obama is not part of the 47% and does not need to take this personally.
Also, how many of that 47% are not of voting age? Lots of younguns drawing government welfare.
I’m on SS and I wouldn’t think of voting for any Democrat.
you are correct. I guess I am referring to the percentage (whatever it is) that receive direct welfare type benefits when they could be earning an honest living. There is no disgrace in being the working poor. You have nothing to apologize for. We need your vote more than ever in Ohio, FLorida, Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Wisconsin, Indiana, West Virginia, Michigan, etc.
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