http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romney-my-job-is-not-t
There is so much wrong with Romney said, it is hard to know where to start. But for the fun of it, I'll focus on two places.
First, the idea that Obama's supporters come nearly exclusively from those Americans with no Federal income tax liability is verifiably and importantly false. While I can think of no good reason for this to be true, as it turns out, something like 30-40% of the people in the bottom 2/5 of the income distribution in the U.S. who turn out to vote will end up voting for Romney, unless something radical changes. So, no, as it turns out, it isn't that those with no Federal income tax liability invariably vote for Obama (nor is the case that all those in the highest 5th of U.S. incomes invariably vote Republican -- it is actually just a bit over 50%, nor even that all or even most of those in households with incomes of over $250,000/yr vote Republican, again, it is just around 50%). (Data is slightly of out date, but see http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html and http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/section-1-party-affiliation-and-composition/)
So, just to be clear, even as a campaign strategy, Romney's remarks are off the mark. It may well be that the Republican party in general, and Romney in particular, has lost 47% of the voters before the race is really on. But those voters aren't all poor, and not all the poor are lost to Romney. They *should be* but they aren't. If they were -- if in fact everyone who had no Federal income tax liability was a guaranteed vote for Obama, Obama would take the election with at ;east 70%, and likely closer to 75%. of the vote, a bigger landslide than I believe has ever in fact occurred. So Romney is either confused, or lying to his supporters (or, as my colleague Vance Ricks notes, doing the now-standard pseudo-cryptic race-baiting that the right is so good at, but that's a topic for another time).
Second, what is, to me, perhaps most astonishing, and at least right up there in the grossly offensive category, is the idea that the "47%" of Americans with no income tax liability are more "dependent upon government" than is anyone else. (Here I am NOT making the obvious point that we are all, in fact, dependent upon the infrastructure that we were handed, etc. I've made that point before, but that's not the point here.)
Rather, the point is that of the 47% of Americans with no income tax liability, about a quarter are the elderly, and of the other 3/4, *most of them have jobs and are working their asses off*. Let's let that sink in a minute. Of the 3/4 of the 47% w/o a Federal income tax liability who aren't the elderly, almost 80% are paying Federal payroll taxes, and actually have non-trivial reportable incomes. "Only" about 15% of all the people not currently paying Federal income tax (so about 15% of the roughly 47% w/o a Federal income tax liability, or around 7% of the population) are failing to do so because they have very very little income (under about $20K/year).
Romney seems to think that the only people with no Federal income tax liability are those who don't work, "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." Not only is that not true, it's just crazy. Most of people with no Federal income tax liability a) pay a similar and in many cases higher percentage of their total income in overall taxes than does Romney (just not Federal income tax), and b) get no particular special benefits from the Government -- no benefits, in other words, that aren't available to *everyone else in the country, too*.
Most of the non-elderly with no Federal income tax liability have no Federal income tax liability because they don't earn *enough* to generate a liability. How much is enough? For a family of 4, one will start having a Federal income tax liability at around $40k-$50k/year, depending on the details; most working adults w/o a Federal tax liability make a bit less than that. So, if you are in a family with two adult workers and two kids, and the two adults work, say, a number of part-time, low-wage jobs, both adults can easily end up working 50+ hours a week (EACH, for 100 hours total), most weeks of the year, and still end up pretty damned poor (if you doubt this, it is a valuable exercise to "do the math" for yourself, taking into account the myriad of ways in which there is a disconnect between the actual hours that poor people work and the money they in fact take home -- see e.g. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed), and hence have no Federal income tax liability.
Such families will be paying significant payroll taxes (please note well that these are *Federal taxes*, just not Federal *income* taxes), and either state income tax (most state income taxes are not nearly as 'progressive' as the Federal tax code, and kick in a lower income level) or state sales tax, or both. All we will be paying various fuel taxes and other sundry taxes.
Note too that of course most families with children *can't* have both parents work 50+ hours a week outside the home because *someone needs to take care of the kids, at least some of the time!* So, really, what we've got is two adult workers, working as many hours as they possibly can while juggling childcare. Even if, combined, the two adults "only" manage to work 70 hours a week outside the home, I defy anyone to claim, with a straight face, that they are slackers abusing the system.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think two people, who are both working hard, and who are trying to raise a family on under or right around $30,000/year, are failing "to take responsibility for their lives" (Romney: "[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."). I think the claim that everyone who lacks a Federal income tax liability is some kind of moocher *ought* to disgust every thinking person. If Romney really believes that -- if he really believes that the majority of Americans with no Federal income tax liability are not taking responsibility for their lives -- he not only isn't qualified to be President, he doesn't qualify as a minimally decent human being.
What is unfortunate is that many of the 47% of Americans without a Federal Income tax liability *believe that they pay Federal income taxes* and hence are part of the 53% that does, because they *file income returns* and have taxes withheld, etc. Indeed, many people who in fact are eligible for and receive the Earned Income Tax Credit believe that they are part of the 53% that "pays income tax" again, because taxes are withheld and they have to file returns, etc. And of course, Romney and the right-wing pundits are doing everything they can to obscure those facts.
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